Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1979: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. Tully

This Bill, which has been put before the House in the last days of this session, is very important. I agree with my colleagues who said there is no way in which a Bill of this kind should be rushed through this House for the purpose of conveniencing any of us who would like to go on our holidays.

The Bill contains many new sections and changes in administrative practices. One section deals with a question I have always felt very strongly about: the idea that certain things should be dealt with by ministerial order in future and that the particular sections of an Act passed in 1966 should be changed. First, ministerial orders must be placed before the Houses of the Oireachtas and there is chance of debating them within 21 days. Very often this is a most unsatisfactory way of dealing with matters of this kind. Second, the Minister feels it would be better if the Minister in charge at any particular time had the right to deal with, for instance, the size of grants and so on, without having to come before the House. In this case if specific reference had been made in the Bill they could have been dealt with because most of us agree that that is a good idea.

There are many points in the Bill that have to be teased out during the Committee Stage. This is very much a Committee Stage Bill, despite the fact that we have had long speeches here, and mine will not be too short either.

This Bill attempts to copperfasten Government policy on housing. While I will not blame the Minister, the Government must take the full responsibility for what they are doing. The Minister comes into the House as their representative. I would hate to think that he firmly believes the line being taken by the Government in regard to housing is correct. I listened to the people who spoke today, particularly Deputy Lawlor. It was obvious, as he pointed out, that he was not here when the previous legislation was passed and that he was not here when the previous legislation was passed and that he did not know as much about housing as other Deputies. To me he appeared to know very little about housing. There is no point in talking about the fact that Dublin city and county lines run together and that there is difficulty in allocating houses, deciding on requirements or looking for sites. I appointed a housing co-ordinator with the approval of my Government who agreed that this was necessary. He did an excellent job and prevented all this messing around which was occuring previously and is occurring again. What has happened since the change of Government? We do not hear very much about the housing co-ordinator.

I agree also with Deputy F. O'Brien who talked about inner city development. The Minister is talking about the way in which housing, particularly local authority housing, is being dealt with. As far as Dublin city is concerned the only housing schemes under way were approved during the time of the National Coalition Government when I was Minister for Local Government. This development was possible in some cases because I sanctioned CPOs which my predecessor and his predecessor in the Fianna Fáil party as Ministers had refused to sanction. What is going to happen now to the inner city? The Minister and other speakers from those benches have said that sites are too dear. Is that story to be used as an excuse to prevent any further development in the centre of Dublin? I am not a Dublin man, but I believe it would be a shame if the action taken by Dublin Corporation with the active encouragement of the National Coalition Government to try to rebuild Dublin city centre is to be stymied now because somebody says that it is costing too much to buy the sites.

Two angles of that have to be examined. One is the fact that building on the edge of the city will eventually cost a lot more than building in the city centre. We will have the cluttered streets and the lack of schools and all the facilities which were necessary and which were provided in the inner city, if people are moved out from there. Apart from that, people are entitled to live where they have always lived, if at all possible.

The second angle is the question of the cost of those sites. When I was Minister I said that something should be done about this. Possibly it would have been, because I felt very strongly on this question of the cost of sites. People bought old coal-yards, tumbledown houses and so on for a few shillings 30 or 40 years ago and now are looking for £1 million for those sites which they got for almost nothing. The Kenny report, which was presented to me after I had taken office, dealt only with the perimeter of the cities and towns and did not deal with the main points which were the city and town centres. In Dublin, Cork, Galway and all towns and villages throughout the country there are thousands of sites which could and should be used. The reason that they have not been used is that the Department of the Environment have not taken the initiative. I bear my share of blame for it, but Fianna Fáil, who were in office for a long time before I was and have been in office again for two years now, must take the major share of the blame for not doing something about this. Why should derelict sites in this city be left as an eyesore with tumbledown houses near the city centre? Surely the very least that could be done would be to impose some type of taxation on those derelict sites. That might force the owners either to build on them or sell them to the corporation who should build on them. When we were in office we made provision to do this but it was not proceeded with. Perhaps we had not the time. In future the people of Dublin should be housed in these places and not out on the perimeter of the city.

Deputy Lawlor has said that the whole thing is a question of money. I know how much it costs to build local authority or any other type of houses. A tremendous amount of money is required, but to get that money first of all it is necessary to be prepared to consider housing a priority. I suggest that the present Government do not consider the housing of ordinary people as a priority in their programme. It is a question of whether the money to be provided is going to be provided in the proper place. I make no apology for allocating the lion's share of the money given to local authorities in my time to Dublin city and, to a lesser degree, to Cork city. That was where the big problem was. Despite that, all local authorities throughout the country found that they were gradually getting rid of their waiting list. According to statistics issued by the present Government after they had taken office, 78 per cent of the people looking for local authority houses a little over 12 months ago consisted of two in family. This the Government used as an argument to suit themselves. Indeed, it is a great tribute to their predecessors although I am sure it is not intended in that way. If they had continued on that basis we would have reached the stage where—although we would not do away with the housing list if we were going to have a living city because there would always be people coming along who would qualify for houses—at least we would have cut down the list to the minimum. Instead of that the list is growing again. The amount of money given to local authorities last year and particularly this year for building houses in relation to the present cost of houses means that the number of people rehoused will be less and less as the years go by. As long as Fianna Fáil are there—which will not be very long but they will be there for two and a half years anyway—they will continue to reduce the number of houses being built by local authorities.

In November 1978 I introduced the low rise mortgage scheme. That scheme properly administered is the only bright light I see. It is the only hope being offered by the present Government because they have continued it for the people who are unable to get local authority houses and who are being encouraged to build their own. When the scheme was introduced as an experiment my intention was that it should apply to a married couple who had been 12 months on the housing list of the local authority and provided that they had one child at the time they applied. Possibly I was at some fault. I am not prepared to say that the officials, who are excellent people, put something into the scheme which I did not intend, but the result was that a lot of people who were married and who were in a position at that time to consider building houses were ruled out.

Subsequently, the present Minister altered the conditions slightly but it is difficult to understand his thinking on it. In his alteration of the scheme he said that it should apply to people where there were two in family, parent and child. This was intended to deal with the one-parent family but it would have been far better if he had said simply that it applies where two people are concerned. People who are married, whether they have a family or not, are entitled to housing and if they are unable to provide it directly out of their own pocket, then money should be provided for them by somebody. The local authority can do it with the aid of the low rise mortgage. I suggest that this alteration in the scheme be made. This will relieve to some extent the claims of a number of people who at present see no hope of ever being rehoused.

The Minister rightly talks about the co-operatives who are building houses and one in particular operates mainly in his own county doing an excellent job. Father Bohan's group have been working very hard. Legislation should be devised, not to give them £6,000 for the purpose of helping them along, but to give co-operatives like them a substantial amount of money which will ensure that they will at least be able to continue building the houses. The biggest trouble with those schemes is that their cash flow is always too tight. If they had a certain amount of money on which they could operate they would always have a flow which would keep them going, but when they build a scheme they have to wait until the scheme is almost completed before they have enough money to do anything with it. It would be an excellent idea if something could be done to ensure that these people are helped. During my period in office legislation did not enable me to give them the money I thought they needed. I mentioned Father Bohan's group because they are doing a very good job and there are many others who deserve to be helped.

The amount of money being made available to local authorities for housing is so small when compared with building costs that it is ridiculous to suggest that the Government have any interest in keeping up local authority housing schemes. Deputy Fitzpatrick said this morning that a definite effort is being made to reduce them considerably and this is also my opinion. The number of local authority houses built in 1976 was 7,263; in 1977 it was 6,333 and in 1978 it was 6,073. Where do we go from that? Figures go down on a sliding scale. There is no point in saying to people who apply for a local authority house that they are being put on a list or that they will get an SDA loan. The amount of money available last year and this year for SDA loans is so small that it is of no use to the large number of people looking for houses. I have figures of the number of people who availed of loans and the figures given by the Minister for last year as compared with previous years. He gives the impression that he is comparing like with like but this is not the case. There was a means test applying the loans to people with a reasonable income as against something which was promised to everybody, no matter what the income. It is not right that this should be done.

If someone comes to me as a public representative and tells me that he badly needs rehousing I must advise him to go to the local authority and apply for an SDA loan. The Minister has recently made a regulation confining these loans to people with an income in the region of £80 per week. The amount of the loan is £9,000 and the repayments amount to about £22 per week. Then these people must look for a suitable site. Even if the site is provided by the local authority it can cost from £1,200 to £2,500. Prices on the open market start at £2,000 and end up anywhere, depending on the number of sites available in the area. The loan of £9,000 is not given until the house is completed. They must find a builder who will construct the house on the site. They will have the £9,000, less the cost of the site, plus whatever money they have saved. Young people cannot save much money at present.

There is no such thing nowadays as a house costing £10,000 or £12,000. One would be lucky to find a house under £16,000 and the cost of an ordinary three-bedroomed house is between £15,000 and £20,000. Of what use is a loan of £9,000 to someone who is earning only slightly more than £80 per week? Such a person may qualify for a low-rise mortgage but if this is not the case he cannot get the money to build a house. I am sure the Minister has had the experience of going around the country and seeing the type of houses being built. There is a rather strange phenomenon at present. Ordinary houses are no longer being built but there are many luxury houses under construction in the £40,000-£100,000 bracket. Ten years ago a luxury house might have cost £20,000 but such houses are now being sold at these exorbitant prices. The two-house family is now nearly as common as the two-car family. People with money are buying property but the small man cannot get the accommodation to which he is entitled.

In bringing in this legislation the Minister had a golden opportunity to deal with problems of this kind. He should have taken firm steps to deal with the question of site value and the exorbitant demands being made by people in cities and towns for sites which they acquired for very little. He should have ensured that local authorities were allowed, as previously, to build houses for those who need them.

There is reference in the Bill to an inspection by a medical officer of the accommodation of people who require housing. It is suggested that it would shorten proceedings if that procedure were done away with and left to the discretion of the local authorities. I do not know if the Minister has examined this point. I do not want to see a situation arising again where county councillors will be giving out houses. I believe that the officials, on expert advice, are the people to allocate houses. That has been the system. I do not believe that someone who is not a medical officer should be entitled to carry out this function. Council officials are the same as the rest of us and have their own definite political views. The onus should not be put on them but should be allowed to rest on the medical officer who gives professional advice. The fact that medical officers may have been switched to the health boards should not prevent them from giving advice. The Minister should examine this point. I do not want to see again the racket which existed many years ago where someone who wanted a house got it because he lobbied councillors. That was before my time as a member of a county council, but it was done. The situation has now changed drastically and I would hate to see the re-creation of the old system.

Veiled references have been made to the standard of local authority houses. In my time in this House I have become used to people flying a kite to see what the reaction will be. Fianna Fáil have always been very good at kite flying. A few little kites have been appearing about the standard of houses—that they are costing too much because the standard is too high. When I took over I found the standard was too low. It was an abominable standard, the worst possible standard, not only for local authority houses but for the cheaper private houses as they were then. The general standard had dropped considerably.

When the local authorities started to build decent houses people were ashamed to build poor type houses beside them, and the standard went up generally. I should not like to see us going back, in the interests of the economy, to the type of houses built by my predecessor. I handed over a good standard to the Minister. He has maintained it up to now, and I hope he will continue to maintain it. Apart from anything else, the cost of repairing substandard houses is so high that I am sure the people in the Department of the Environment have headaches from trying to keep them in a habitable conditions.

The Minister of State at the Department of the Environment is in the House. I should like to remind him of statements he made when he was on this side of the House. It was usual for him to say county councils were not getting enough money. He had a favourite one about Kerry County Council and the small number of houses being built in Kerry, about 300, or something like that. The next time he goes into the Department he should look at how many houses were built in Kerry last year and how many will be built this year. When he is in Opposition again he may be a little more careful about making those charges.

He is not the only one. People from Dublin suggested all they had to do was to get into office and millions of pounds would be made available for housing. The effort we made was a good one and it should be kept up, but it looks as if it will not be kept up. The Taoiseach said in December 1976 that we were building too many local authority houses in relation to the number of houses being built. He has lived up to this word.

Quite a number of sections in the Bill deal with things done from 1970 on, and legislation had to be introduced eventually to legalise them. The Minister of State, Deputy Lalor, asked why we did not do this when we were in office. That sounds a little hollow having regard to the practice which has built up over the years. At a certain stage the officials say: "It is time this was regularised. A Bill should be introduced."

I am interested in section 2 dealing with devolution of the administration of house grant schemes. I devolved it to the local authority in County Meath because it was the one I knew best and to Longford, Westmeath and Donegal for water and sewerage schemes to have them administered at local level. I felt this would lead to an administrative saving. I also felt it would speed up the inspection of the work, because the engineer who is going along the road every day is most likely to know whether the housing scheme or the water and sewerage scheme is being done properly and this saves bringing somebody down from Dublin to inspect it. The Minister would be well advised to consider devolving the administration of these schemes again. I did it on a pilot scheme and I would advise the Minister to do it on a general scale. I know there are difficulties. I know certain officials would feel they would be put out of a job. Knowing how understaffed the Department are, I am sure there would be no difficulty whatever in finding adequate employment for them.

I have already dealt with co-operative housing. I would be prepared to give the Minister any help I possible could in assisting these bodies because I believe they are doing a great job. They are pioneers. I am very proud that the first co-operative scheme was carried out in the village in which I live, Laytown. It was an excellent effort. The co-operation of the local authority and the officials of the Department was forthcoming. A site was got from the local authority at a reasonable cost. The houses are there and will be there long after all of us have passed on. A number of other schemes have been carried out in the area since. All over the country we have these co-operative schemes.

Sections 4, 5 and 6 replace sections 15, 16, 18 and 21 to 32 of the Housing Act, 1966, as amended by the Housing Act of 1970, and sections 2 and 3 of the Local Government (Sanitary Services) Act, 1952. That may be all right, but I am always very doubtful about giving any Minister the right to do things by order which previously were done under legislation passed by the Houses of the Oireachtas. While in this case some of the things referred to are necessary, I do not believe this is a good thing generally and I would be a little careful about supporting it. The question of the provision of the grants and so on could be dealt with specifically rather than including them in a blanket section as has been done in this case.

Section 4 provides a statutory basis for the new house grants payable by the Minister. As I pointed out, the Minister has drawn the long bow, because he stated that between July 1977, when he introduced the £1,000 new house grant scheme for first-time owner occupiers and the end of May 1979, 17,389 grants were approved and 9,874 were paid, and 4,674 grants were approved under the old scheme during the year ended 30 June 1977. There was a means test then. It appears from my reading of the Bill that it is again proposed to introduce a means test. If not, perhaps the Minister will say so. According to the wording it appears some type of means will be introduced.

The regulations which govern the payment of the £1,000 grant have been tightened up considerably. Many people complain to me that they have been ruled out for one reason or another. Before the £1,000 grant scheme was introduced those engaged in agriculture, under a certain valuation, farm workers and people in substandard houses could get a grant of £900. So, for those people who need a grant, all that is involved is an extra £100. This makes the £1,000 which dazzled so many eyes before the 1977 General Election look very small. When we compare the £1,000 grant with the cost of a new house, it is a very small State contribution and offers little encouragement. At the time when it was £325 and there was supplementary grants from local authorities up to £700, one could build a house for £3,000 which at present would cost about £15,000. If one relates those two, one can see how much use the £1,000 grant is even if somebody qualified for it.

House improvement grants could have been increased. I was speaking to a widow a few days ago. She wanted a very simple thing done. She lives in a three-bedroomed council cottage and wanted to build a small bedroom, kitchen, put a septic tank in—she already has water—and build a small porch in the front because she lives close to the sea. The air is strong particularly in spring. The quotation for the job was £9,000. To say to her she would get £600 of a grant is not a lot of encouragement to get her to improve her housing conditions. That is what we should relate the grants to and not to the fact that they were £300 or £400 before and are now £600. The question is, what incentive is it? With the cost of building materials at present it is very small. Having improvement works instead of reconstruction is like changing the name of the Department of Local Government to the Department of the Environment: it does the same thing. It does not matter whether it is improvement works or reconstruction, it will not put another shilling into anybody's pocket. When it is called something in 1960 it should be called the same thing in 1979.

Section 5(1) will enable the Minister to pay a grant to a housing authority for improvement works carried out to their rented houses. That is an excellent idea. I would like to see it in operation and know what the grant will be paid for. Will any improvement be made in it? Will this apply to houses where no fireplaces are provided? I introduced a grant which helped—between the local authority and the Department it reached £400 on a £600 job or two-thirds—to provide a fireplace in a number of these houses. Is it now proposed to update that? Will something be done to increase the amount of money available and allow the local authority to put fireplaces in their own houses? At present they do not do so.

I remember the taunts from this side of the House about how backward we were on 16 May 1974 when I made an order regulating that every new house would have to have a fireplace. I was told about the wealth of oil in the country and in the world and that it was stupid to put a fireplace in a house. It would contaminate the atmosphere and who would want a fireplace instead of central heating? Now who wants central heating instead of a fireplace? I should like to know whether the Minister intends to include this in the grant which he is prepared to pay for improvement work.

Deputy O'Brien referred to a rented scheme owned by Guinness Trust. If they are taken over by the local authority can any provision be made?

Will the Minister consider that and ensure that this Bill will be wide enough to cover that? Old houses which have not received a lot of attention from landlords for many years may require a lot of repairs. I would be glad if the local authority would take them over and ensure the necessary repairs are carried out.

As far as consolidating the existing stock of houses is concerned, no Government have ever done enough about that. There are a lot of houses that could be made habitable if the necessary effort was made. It would eventually save the State a lot of money. Enough thought has not been given to that. I do not mean that another committee should be set up to look into it. Committees are there when nobody wants to take any action. They are a grand way of giving an impression that something is being done. We must take the bull by the horns and do the job. We started it in the inner city and I ask the Minister to continue it. There are houses which need to be repaired or they will fall down. If the people who own them are unable to repair them, the onus is on the local authority and, through the local authority, on the State, to have the repairs carried out.

The Bill can affect rented accommodation in a big way. A lot of accommodation is wasted. People who own houses are sometimes living themselves in appalling conditions because their houses are let at a low rent to someone who could afford to pay much more. One the other hand, there is the rack-rent landlord who is charging more than he should for poor accommodation. I am disappointed that some effort has not been made to grasp this nettle. Now is the time to do it. If we put it on the long finger it means that in a few years somebody else will bring a new Bill before the House and someone else will be making the same suggestion.

There was a sensible suggestion made a few years ago that young people and families living in Ballymun should be rehoused and places like Ballymun Towers should be used to house young people coming from the country and living and working in the city who would be prepared to pay a reasonable rent for decent accommodation. That is a pipe dream now and we will not get very far with it. The loan of £200 which can be increased to £600 is a help but it is only a small one. Some local authorities have been giving loans which allow people to repair old houses. However, not enough local authorities are prepared to do that.

On the question of subsidies to local authorities towards the annual loan charges incurred by them for sites for private houses, it is wrong for local authorities, when they get such loan charges, to charge those who are building houses on those sites. They should charge them a reasonable amount compared with sites outside. If the people had a few pounds a week less and, instead of having £81, had £79, the local authority would be responsible for rehousing them. It is a bit much when the local authority, after pointing that out to the applicant, charge £1,500 or £2,000 for a serviced site.

The Minister spoke about having made arrangements to increase the supply of serviced land by increasing substantially the allocation for sanitary services this year. He said that local authorities had been asked last August to consider possible land reserves with a view to making serviced sites available for private housing. If the Minister would like me to go through it, I have got the answer to a question I asked last week. It directly contradicts his statement about giving more money for sanitary services. The amount of money given for sanitary services this year is very much lower than in previous years. I will take my own constituency, Meath. In 1976 the figure was £585,000; in 1975 it was £468,000; in 1978 it was £446,000; and in 1979 it was £475,000. Talk about inflation.

Mr. Barrett

That is only one local authority.

Mr. Tully

I am prepared to give the whole lot. I will take Clare. In 1974 the figure was £160,000; in 1975 it was £358,000; in 1976 it was £422,000; in 1977 it was £631,000; in 1978 it was £426,000; and in 1979 it was £218,000. If we go right through the whole lot we will see that the direct opposite has been happening. Serviced sites will not be provided in that way. Despite all the noise that was made when the Government were on this side of the House about the lack of serviced land, we finished up with much more land available for houses than had been there in 1973. I am all in favour of making serviced sites available.

On section 11, the Minister said the Bill would provide a statutory basis for low-rise mortgages and he said he had modified the scheme so as to enable certain two-person families to qualify, families comprising one parent and one child. I suggest that the Minister should alter that so as to facilitate married couples without children. I introduced that scheme in 1976. I do not agree that a married couple without a family should not be entitled to a house.

There is the question of the provision of money for private housing. I believe the amount available for SDA loans is far too small and that the amount of money which can be borrowed is too far below the cost of building a house because of the tremendous change in the last two years. Recently we have been hearing about the latest hike in interest rates which were already too high. Some years ago we passed legislation which updated building society law which had been covered by legislation 103 years old. We know what the members of the present Government said about that Bill when it going through. Luckily I got it enacted nearly three years ago and I suggest that the regulations provided for in that Bill should be adhered to strictly. No matter what happens we should try to ensure that building societies will not be permitted to increase their rates unduly.

It would be wrong if we allowed building societies to increase their rates to such an extent that people who borrowed from them years ago would be paying three times the interest rate. It is bad enough at present. I cannot understand why some countries can have very low interest rates when we allow ours to hit the ceiling.

Provision is being made here for people living in Donaghmede, Tallaght and elsewhere in Dublin who qualify for normal local authority house purchase loans at a fixed rate of interest of 9 per cent. Dublin Corporation, then under a Fianna Fáil Minister, had not got the money but said to would-be purchasers that it was all right to get the money from building societies. Then they forced them to pay the building society rates which were much higher than the people had expected. One of the last things I did before leaving office was to arrange that these people would have the rate pushed back to 9 per cent. I am glad the Minister has seen the validity of that. The local authority should always be given the necessary money to give loans to people looking for them who are entitled to them, and guarantees to building societies should be made good.

The question of carrying out work on pre-sale local authority houses was mentioned. The procedure whereby tenants would do the work themselves had been in operation for many years and it was worked out pretty well. Tenants are often able to do a much better job than contractors, whose main interest would be to get paid for the work. The 1966 Act refers to structural repairs and if local authorities stuck strictly to structural repairs very little would be done. One could say that round towers are structurally sound, but would anybody be able to live in them? There are local authorities who do not stick strictly to the letter of the law in this respect. There should be a general directive that as many repairs would be done as are reasonably necessary and not just structural repairs. Deputy Blaney was Minister at that time and I am surprised he allowed that Bill to be enacted.

The Minister referred to section 16 in regard to improvement grants for houses for the mentally and physically handicapped. The general impression was given that nothing had been done for such people until the present Government took office. I am proud that the officials who were working under me in the Department agreed that a percentage of all local authority houses—it became 10 per cent ultimately—should be provided for old folk. In many cases they were people who would never have got houses though they were living in appalling conditions. I provided such things as sliding doors, ramps for wheelchairs, a system which allowed physically handicapped to get in and out of baths—in other words, an enlightened approach. I should be glad if the Minister would ensure this would be continued. I have already dealt with the question of reports by medical officers. This also should be continued.

I am a bit doubtful about the provision in regard to sales. At the moment housing authorities have discretion under section 90 of the 1966 Act in regard to the sale of any of their houses. I go all the way with the Minister that old folks' houses should not pass out of the hands of local authorities. I would not agree that a house of this kind should be passed on to a person who would almost certainly sell it.

I found things happening in Dublin in regard to houses which were being used by the corporation as rent offices. In such cases I found the greatest reluctance on the part of the corporation to allow such houses to be sold to the tenants—the corporation made every effort possible to ensure they would not be sold. I suggest that tenants who have obliged the corporation by allowing them to use their houses as rent offices should be treated in the same way as other tenants willing to purchase.

I am aware local authorities have the right to refuse to allow tenants to sell cottages. I am doubtful whether this is a good idea in many cases. There are many people in the country who might be leaving the area to live with friends and they might have only a few years redemption of their houses, yet they are not allowed to sell them. That is wrong. Tenants should be facilitated to sell to people in the area who would be entitled to rehousing.

I come now to a section about which I feel strongly, section 18. New house prices have gone through the roof. Prices being charged for any kind of house are ridiculous. The CRVs were being operated in my time and I was surprised to hear the Minister say last night on the Adjournment that he had made a better job of applying this system than I did.

Mr. Barrett

I am doing it now.

Mr. Tully

The Minister is not. The trouble about the CRV system is that at the best of times it worked well, but did not work at all in many instances. The Minister would be deluding himself if he got the impression that because he is administering it he can wave a wand to operate the CRV system well in every case. It is not operating well and it will not operate well. I was rather annoyed at the Minister to have made such a remark. It is unlike the Minister to take such a pretty line. I was surprised to hear that he and the CIF do not appear to be hitting it off. The CIF are not pin-ups of mine. I had good and bad relations with them, but as a trade union official of some experience I have always found that rows can be settled around the table. The local postal dispute was one such row. There should not be any of this playing hard to get. Of course it would be wrong to suggest that the CIF should be allowed to dictate to the Minister on legislation, but they are a very important section of the business community whose views must be heard. I found some of the members very reasonable but on occassions I disagreed with their views.

The CRV system operates well when we have people who are prepared to accept a price for a job, but if we have contractors who, having got a CRV, try to persuade the buyer that they should put in some kind of stoves or some special kind of fitting for which they will charge extra, the system will not work properly. We have heard of people getting CRV's for a number of houses and not completing many of them and lumping them with a second lot within the CRV scheme. The scheme will not work if that continues. There are no better officials than those in this Department and if they cannot make it work something will have to be done about it.

There has been references to guarantees for house builders. Again it appears that somebody is trying to give the impression that such guarantees were worked out by the present Minister. They were worked out by the officials when I was in charge with Mr. Greene of the CIF. It had been ready for completion when I left office. I hope that scheme will work well.

I wish the Minister well in his efforts to get house prices down but I suggest the Minister's efforts now will not succeed in that. The CRV scheme on its own, even with the best will in the world, will not prevent people from trying to drive a coach and four through the legislation. Therefore, something has to be done to try to tighten it up. Houses are bad enough, but I believe flats are far worse. It is something the Minister will have to get working on. I do not know whether the Minister can empower lending agencies to give loans on CRV houses and I should like to see this spelled out.

One of the complaints of the builders in my time—I have always claimed it was not correct—was that there was too much delay between the application for a CRV and granting it, particularly where an appeal was involved. If this is done in respect of every house how can the Minister ensure that the scheme is properly serviced? Is it not true that many of the bigger houses will be sold at a double price no matter what is done? I suggest the Minister may be compounding the whole business by widening the group of houses covered. I should like to be sure that the officials will have sufficient help to ensure that they can do the job. If not, life will be made very unpleasant for them by the people concerned, and that would be wrong.

The Minister's statement said that this is not intended where short-term borrowing such as bridging finance and so on is referred to and a loan is defined in such a way that it will not apply. One of the shocking things about house financing is that even though a person has succeeded in getting a loan or a promise of a loan he will not get that until the house is completed. The man pays 17 per cent or 18 per cent to the bank and between one thing and another he can finish up paying back the loan and paying off what he got from a building society or some other agency. House financing is in a mess and a definite effort will have to be made to straighten it out. It will not be done by introducing a Bill like this. All of these matters should have been dealt with in a Bill and I realise that would take a lot of time. However, that would be preferable to putting through a measure here in a few hours and then discovering that it makes little difference in the long run.

The Minister's statements says:

Subsection (8) comprises an important provision which will enable the Minister at his discretion to refuse for a period not exceeding five years to consider any further application for a CRV from any person who has previously obtained a CRV and has either supplied false or misleading information or failed to fulfil requirements under section 18.

To whom is the Minister referring? Is he talking about a builder or an individual? Does it mean that if a builder employing 30 or 40 men makes a false statement, deliberately or otherwise, he can be disqualified for five years? If so, it means he is out of business, not just suspended. Does it mean that if he cannot get a CRV he cannot build houses? Is that the thinking behind the subsection? If so, it should be spelled out fully. It is like the legislation introduced into this House years ago where if a person knocked down somebody on a road, even accidentally, and killed him he could be charged with manslaughter but when it came before a jury they would not convict the person of manslaughter because the punishment could be too serious. Something like that could happen in this case and the cure could be worse than the disease. I accept that a person can appeal to the High Court but that costs a lot of money and it takes a long time for a case to get to court. Someone told me recently it takes about two years.

The Minister stated:

Section 20 contains an amendment of section 30 (2) of the Building Societies Act, 1978, which relates to the powers of the registrar of building societies to investigate the affairs of a society. The section will remove any doubts as to the constitutionality of the existing provisions.

I should like the Minister to elaborate on that. The legislation referred to was passed only three years ago. What is being done here is altering something that is in a different kind of Act. When many of us first came into the House we tried to relate one piece of legislation to another and we found a whole list of Acts that would be affected. One would need a library to find out how certain kinds of legislation relate to each other. I ask the Minister to give more information on this point. The Minister stated:

The section will also extend the Minister's power to make regulations under section 77 of the 1976 Act in relation to the amount and purposes of building society loans. This latter amendment has been found to be necessary in the light of experience since the coming into operation of the 1976 Act. For example, it is necessary from time to time to take steps to reconcile the anticipated level of mortgage lending for new houses with the financial needs of the national housing programme.

Is the Minister saying he wants to have the authority to insist that building socieities will only lend not more than X amount of money or lend money for houses valued at certain amounts at certain periods? He should say so. We have already done that. I have done it, the Minister has done it and it has been done by our predecessors. It is an excellent idea, but whether we were doing it legally is a matter I should like to have clarified.

It is accepted that at present a vast amount of money is being made available from building societies for house-building. I know that some societies want people to lodge £2,000 for a period of not less than six months, that others want £1,000 lodged for 12 months and so on; but having regard to the amount of money presently available it does not appear to be a reasonable approach. It has been stated in the papers that the EMS was responsible for bringing a lot of money into this country, particularly from Britain, which was invested in the building societies. I am not prepared to accept that because people with large amounts of money in Britain did not bring it to this country to invest in building societies. I think the reason the building societies have so much money is because it is now possible to invest pension funds and so on because it is a guaranteed fund. This is possible as a result of the 1976 Act. The present Minister for Finance made the necessary order but the preliminary work was done. It was an excellent idea and I backed it fully when the legislation was going through. I think that is where the big money is coming from. The building societies supply most of the money available for house-building and the Minister's comment about how much money he was making available rings a little hollow. The Minister in his statement said:

The purpose of section 21 is to enable the Minister for Health to transfer, mainly for housing purposes, about 54 acres of land at Navan Road, Dublin, to Dublin Corporation and the Commissioners of Public Works. That Minister presently holds the lands in trust under section 21 (3) of the Saint Laurence's Hospital Act, 1943,...

I agree that legislation was necessary to have that done, and it was an excellent idea to do it, but I should like to know where the Office of Public Works come in. I think it should go to the corporation for housing. There are too many people who would like to have a finger in the pie. Dublin Corporation could use any serviced land they can get like that.

Sections 90 (6) (a) and 98 (5) of the 1966 Act, which enable the housing authorities to require payment, generally referred to as a clawback payment, from part of the profit made on resale by a tenant purchaser of certain houses are repealed by this legislation. I included in the sale regulations, particularly in Dublin, that a person would have to retain a house for five years after purchasing it from the corporation or else pay some of the profit made on it. Many people tried to give the impression that that was the first time that was introduced. If my memory serves me correctly, this applies also to ordinary county council cottages throughout the country, but the whole price was taken into consideration.

This Bill had to be introduced. I am sorry more alterations were not included. Corporations, county councils and all local authorities are entitled to get enough money to build houses for those who need them. We did it in 1973, during the greatest recession Europe has ever known, in 1974, 1975 and 1976. Now Fianna Fáil are cutting back. I am not a prophet of doom, but I predict there will be a substantial drop in the number of local authority and private houses built in 1979. I would hate to see this happening but I know Fianna Fáil's record and they built during the recession. the houses we built during the recession.

I note the Minister has agreed to discuss various items with the National Association of Tenants' Organisations. That is a good idea. I found them reasonable people and suggest they should be treated as such. When I left office I said I felt the system of purchasing local authority houses which I had arranged could not continue because it was bringing the price too high. If I had remained in office I would have taken the necessary steps to try to have this revised. I suggest the Minister discuss this with his officials, who I found excellent because their advice will be sound. The should try to find a better system.

If the Minister wants this Bill passed before we adjourn, I am afraid it will be a long hot summer. I do not see how we could allow this Bill to go through within a matter of hours, as has been suggested. I want to go on holiday as much as anybody but this is the wrong time to introduce this legislation and I suggest that the Autumn would be the proper time to discuss these matters, most of which have been lying around from nine to two years.

Mr. Deasy

I will be brief and, I am afraid, pedestrian. I am surprised more Members have not contributed to this debate as more than 100 of them serve on local authorities. In recent weeks many of us spent long hours going from door to door canvassing for votes. I am sure we all have a vivid insight into housing problems.

Other Deputies spoke at length on some of the major issues—limits for loans, lack of capital allocations and so on—in other words, the shortage of houses which affects, and will continue to affect so many people. There is no easy solution. The Minister cannot wave a magic wand. This problem is always with us and he has my sympathy because he will continue to be accused—and abused—of not doing his job. When I visit housing estates the most pathetic sight is to see a large family with no bathroom facilities or flush toilets. For many years it has been my view that when Ministers make capital allocations for housing to local authorities they should divide that allocation into various sections. A major portion should go to the building of bathrooms in every local authority house which does not have that basic facility. I would appreciate it if the Minister of State would bring that point to the Minister's attention.

These people might have five, six, seven or eight children and they have no chance of getting a house in a new estate where all these modern facilities are available because under existing law they are considered to be adequately housed. I would like to see a change of attitude in the Department and perhaps the Minister could see that these wrongs are balanced. It is very difficult to explain to one of these tenants who is house proud and is ambitious for her children that she cannot get out of that house because she is deemed by the local authority to be adequately housed.

Reference was made to the low rise mortgage scheme. Credit for that scheme must go to the previous Minister for Local Government, Deputy Tully. That was a wonderful innovation which helped numerous people to build their own houses. As has been emphasised in this debate, there should be an expansion of the scheme to enable a married couple to avail of the loan without the stipulation that they should have at least one child.

I agree that they should be on the housing list for a year. There must be certain constraints, but it is unfortunate that a married couple can be on a housing list for five, six, ten or 12 years without a snowball's chance in hell of being rehoused by the local authority because, as is always the case especially on the points system, a family with children will get priority. You can never make up the deficit of not having children unless there is an avalanche of houses, which is a remote possibility. There should be consideration for people with no children who have been on that housing list for a considerable length of time. Some of these people will tell you that they are living with in-laws and they cannot have children because they would have to leave that house. That is pathetic. It is hard for a local representative to explain that they cannot get a house, that there is no chance of it. The pain, anguish and disappointment in their faces is too much to bear. It is a pathetic situation which should be rectified. There is no doubt that it would cost the State an appreciable amount of money but it would be a mercy to allow them qualify under this scheme.

I am glad to see, regarding the stipulation whereby an applicant for rehousing had to have his or her housing conditions examined by a health inspector, that there is provision in the Bill whereby the local authority can send along their own housing officer to do the inspection. Also there is provision for a health inspector to call if there are extenuating circumstances. I agree with that because the present system has not worked. I have seen injustices brought about by the fact that the health inspector may not be doing his job properly, and there can be a delay sometimes of at least a year between the time of the applicant applying to be included on the list and the time it takes the inspector to get around to carry out that inspection. The lack of harmony and co-operation between the health inspectors and the people controlling the health boards and the housing authorities is frightening. It is bureaucracy at its worst, and the sooner that situation is eliminated the better. I am surprised that the CEOs of so many health boards throughout the country have allowed that position to obtain. The local authority on which I serve is Dungarvan Urban Council and we have not yet made out the 1979 housing list, although applications for that list closed before Christmas 1978. The fault lies entirely with the officials of the South-Eastern Health Board, and I am told that that is not an unique position in the country. Some ministerial action must be taken where there is pure neglect or a high degree of inefficiency such as that. Some people who are in need of housing are being discriminated against because houses which become vacant at present are being left off the 1978 list while very urgent cases could have cropped up in the interim. I cannot see how any CEO of a health board or any county manager could tolerate a position such as that. There will have to be a shake-up.

Luckily, in recent years it has become a feature of housing schemes in towns, and villages for that matter, that provision is made for old people's homes. Previously these old people had to go on the housing list and compete with families, and just like the married couples with no children, their chances were remote if not completely hopeless. Nowadays, since the advent of housing schemes for old people their chances have improved considerably and some very worthwhile rehousing has been carried out in this sector. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten me on one point. There was a provision, and I do not know if it still exists, that the council did not get the full housing subsidy unless the people rehoused were over 60 years of age. If that provision still exists it should be changed. In Dungarvan some eight years ago we were told that we would not get that financial aid unless each of the people going into the houses was over 60 years of age.

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment (Mr. J. O'Leary)

With all due respect, I am being extremely relevant because we are talking about housing and I am referring merely to the eligibility of some according to the Minister and their non-eligibility according to the housing officials in certain housing authorities. There seems to be a conflict of opinion in this case and I would like the Minister of State to have the matter ironed out. As we all know, £4,000 is not a mighty income nowadays. Very few people in that category could even think of building their own houses. The site would cost at least £4,000, the equivalent of their annual income. People would probably need an income in the region of £7,000 or £8,000 to consider building a house of their own without the aid of the low rise mortgage scheme. If people who would ordinarily qualify for that subsidised loan have an income in excess of £4,000 they are prevented from getting it.

I am not blaming the present Minister for the level of the limit. During our period in office it was pegged at £2,350, which was a ridiculous figure. It was boosted to £3,500 and now stands at £4,000 which, taking inflation into account, would approximate to the old level of £2,350. The amount was never sufficient. I am aware that the Minister has not a bottomless well of finance available. He says that there is no upper limitation for people on local authority housing lists and this should apply throughout the country.

Mr. J. O'Leary

It is a matter chiefly for the manager of the local authority. The question of need is most important.

Mr. Deasy

I understand that people earning £20,000 a year cannot be rehoused. I have been told by officials in the country that they received a directive from Dublin, but the Minister is quite definite that this is not the case.

There is a sad lack of direction among officials when it comes to building local authority houses. They tend to build where they can easily acquire land. In some backward areas the demand for land is not great, particularly for housing purposes. The council rush in and build perhaps 20 houses, even though there may be only seven or eight approved applicants in the area. Money should be diverted only to areas where there is a housing need. In County Waterford they had to import housing applicants from 30 or 40 miles away. That practice is to be condemned and the Department should ensure that applicants are rehoused in their own areas.

We have a small-minded outlook when it comes to the provision of open space. We build outwards from the centre of towns into the countryside, allowing little or no green space. The law obliging councils to provide a certain percentage of land for open space seems to be flouted by including back gardens and private tennis courts or playing fields. Sufficient open space is not available to the public and this applies throughout the whole country. Local authorities are the worst offenders and I would ask the Minister to see that the law is not flouted in this respect.

It has been suggested to me that housing sites would be much more readily available if there were an effective law to get rid of derelict sites. There is a law at present which is supposed to penalise people but I am told the Act is so full of loopholes that it is absolutely ineffective. Thousands of valuable sites could be provided if existing eyesores were removed and the sites made available for urban renewal. Does the Minister intend to amend existing legislation to deal with this matter? Derelict sites are a blot on our landscape.

Section 30 of the Housing Act, 1966, provides for the repair or reconstruction of a private dwelling in a county council area, but I do not know if similar reconstruction can be carried out on a private dwelling in an urban area. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten me. The section deals with a house in great disrepair whose owner is in very poor circumstances and is consequently unable to carry out repairs. The Council, with the sanction of the Department of the Environment, are entitled to spend public money on making the house habitable for the lifetime of the people who occupy it. I have yet to be allowed to implement this section in an urban area.

During the past year or two I have come across some frightening red tape and the fact that the Minister cannot make an order to overcome it is incomprehensible. A new reconstruction grant scheme was introduced on 1 November 1977. This was to be lauded because it increased the grant from £400 to £600. If someone had started work on a house before that date and had not applied for the grant by the following 1 January, two months later, he or she would be precluded from getting a reconstruction grant of any kind. That seems to me to be the utmost in red tape and bureaucracy. Surely the Minister has a discretion to see that people are not cut out completely from getting any form of grant merely because they did not submit a form before such and such a date. One of the two people I have in mind is an old age pensioner who spent his life savings on reconstructing his house. He assumed he would be entitled to some grant, be it under the old scheme or under the new scheme. Due to this regulation he does not get one shilling. I would ask the Minister to extend that date so that people such as he can qualify.

I have also come across a couple of cases where people cannot qualify on technical grounds for the £1,000 new house grant. It is the duty of public officials to make it easy for people to get these grants and not to put obstacles in their way. I am sure the Minister has every sympathy with that point of view. I tabled four Dáil questions today covering the cases I am referring to, two dealing with reconstruction grants and two with new house grants. I would ask the Minister to use his good offices to see that these people get the grants to which they are entitled. If filling up a form a few days late can cut poor people off from qualifying, something is seriously wrong.

The Minister was absent when I was making my original point. I know I am not supposed to repeat myself but I will. As I said I will be very brief, and I will finish on this note.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Repetition is not in order.

Mr. Deasy

I will come at it in another way.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Very briefly.

Mr. Deasy

I said that in my recent electioneering for the urban and county councils elections I must have visited about 4,000 houses. A high proportion of them were local authority houses and a great proportion of those houses had no bathroom facilities or flush toilets. In future, a certain proportion of the capital allocation to the various local authorities should be designated for one purpose only, that is, to bring those houses up to the required standard. People living in those houses are not considered eligible for rehousing by the local authority because their existing accommodation is deemed to be adequate. Nowadays such housing conditions cannot be deemed to be adequate. In future allocations the Minister should consider giving a block grant to provide everybody living in local authority housing with the basic facility of a bathroom and flush toilet.

Mr. Keating

Any opportunity to discuss housing is welcome because it is one of the major social challenges facing us. I read the Minister's Bill very carefully. I welcome elements of it. The Bill could have been more comprehensive. I hope this does not sound unfair, but it is very little and very late in some cases. There are elements in it which show the Minister is responsive to public feeling and to suggestions from this side of the House. It is a little heartening to know that the time we spend here is not quite as wasted as some of us sometimes think.

The Bill as presented will not make a great deal of difference to the essential housing problems which face us. The Bill is largely a validating measure relating to changes made since 1972 in the schemes of financial assistance in the form of housing grants, subsidies and loans. The real changes needed in the area of housing grants, subsidies and loans are that there should be more of all of them. There is clear statistical and social evidence that we are well on the way to a housing crisis. This housing crisis is not as acute in some rural areas as it is in some urban areas. The Bill could have made some reference to regional disparities, not merely in the allocation of resources but in the overburdening of some local authorities who have many more applicants than there are likely to be dwellings for them, while other local authorities are relatively free of such depressing statistics.

The facts are that in a number of urban areas—Dublin being the eminent example—there is not the slightest likelihood of the numbers of people who are now on the housing lists being housed in the foreseeable future unless there is a basic, fundamental and radical overhaul of the way we have approached housing. It has always been my belief that the reason we have been so halfhearted about radical housing programmes is that for faint-hearted politicians they represent a psychological and a resource commitment today to ends which may not be visible for a period of time long after the next election or the next two elections.

I do not wish to pretend that Ministers for Local Government are totally villainous in the way they approach housing statistics, but there is a natural psychological pressure on them to deliver the goods within the five year cycle. Therefore, down the years housing has been to some extent the Cinderella area of the social services. This is particularly tragic when most of the social ills which beset us today, and to which on some occasions we are very quick to provide a very superficial response, can be traced in whole or in part to a bad housing environment. Dáil Éireann still stands within two miles of housing conditions which can only be considered as Dickensian and antediluvian. People are cluttered together, in some cases with six or seven in the one room.

In relation to schemes of financial assistance in the form of housing grants, subsidies and loans, I should like to have seen in the Bill not just the validating of regulations which have been in existence for some years, or the topping up of other regulations, or tentative and in some cases quite cosmetic manoeuvring on some schemes such as the CRVs, but a very radical revision, in the literal sense of the word, of how we have been tackling housing. The social, economic, cultural and other by-products of bad housing are so overwhelmingly obvious that I do not understand why a Minister and a Government cannot take upon themselves the exciting and challenging job of making radical and major improvements in that area. That revision, that basic rethinking on the way we have been doing things, finds no response in this Bill.

Towards the end of the Minister's remarks he made reference to certificates of reasonable value and he purported to introduce certain changes in the schemes. I am pleased that in the tenor of his remarks, echoed lavishly enough this evening by the media, the Minister indicates that he is concerned about CRVs and that there is reason for concern. In his speech he said:

I think, however, it is generally agreed that it no longer provides an adequate statutory framework for the operation of this form of control on house prices.

He goes on to outline not only his own reservations but also the degree to which a minority of builders have been "known to charge prices far in excess of the CRV price" clearly indicating that the need is well-established for a major dramatic innovation in this area. The innovation which should follow such a statement is one that has been requested from this side of the House and the practices which the Minister has referred to were almost verbatim those outlined in questions by Deputy Fitzpatrick, spokesman for the Environment for Fine Gael, for a considerable time.

What do we get as a response to the Minister's decision that the situation is not satisfactory? We get a very cosmetic, weak gesture which will not go anywhere near dealing with the real problem. I contend that the Minister is weak in a number of respects with regard to CRVs. We asked questions on 15 May about CRVs. The Minister, on that occasion, was not just apparently unable to grasp the essential facts of what we were trying to get across, but was either deliberately or otherwise evasive in his replies. With the permission of the Chair I raised this matter on the adjournment last night and have since had an opportunity of surveying the Minister's limited response to my queries on that occasion. As the Minister comprehensively refers to "evasion" by builders of the intent, purpose, spirit and letter of the CRVs, the evasion of the Minister in this area on that date is relevant to what we are talking about.

There is now overwhelming evidence to indicate that the Minister persists in neglecting to correct the omissions which he made on that date. On that date I asked the Minister if he was aware that certain builders were evading their responsibility by asking would-be purchasers to sign to the effect that the CRV was not going to be paid and that they therefore acknowledged they would lose and forego the £1,000 grant. There is nothing, as the Minister rightly points out, illegal about that. Whether or not it is desirable, sharp practice, Government policy or more or less acceptable to either side of the House is not the issue. The issue I wish to make—and I intend to repeat it on every occasion until I get a reply from the Minister—is that, despite details being supplied by me on that occasion, the Minister consistently, persistently, arrogantly, and totally determinedly said he knew nothing about what I was saying. I have looked at the replies to many of the questions which the Minister for the Environment handles. I have a great deal of admiration for the Minister's manner and challenge. He does himself and the House a disservice by covering up in the way he does for people who should be brought to heel by him.

The Minister said he did not know what we were talking about. It transpired subsequently that not merely had I brought this matter to the Minister's attention but that the Taoiseach had done so by a letter dated prior to that occasion. When we are talking, in the context of the Bill, about CRVs it is hypocritical, if not worse, for the Minister to try to adopt a lofty attitude of admonishing all and sundry about the right way to behave when he is guilty of mischievous and misleading replies in the House. On 6 March the Taoiseach——

Acting Chairman (Mr. F. O'Brien)

The Deputy discussed that last night. It is not in order to have a second discussion on this. We should stick to the Bill. The CRVs are part of it but we should keep to the Bill where possible.

Mr. Keating

The question of evasion on the CRVs was a central point in the Minister's address this morning and was interpreted widely as being so. I abhor double standards. That is part of my function in this House and I will continue to assert that as long as I remain here. Nobody wishes to replay last night's exchange. I want to ask the Minister if, in relation to the evasion he refers to in his speech, he is aware that on 15 March the Taoiseach replied to a client of mine saying he had drawn certain matters to his attention. I would like an answer to that question. If that is the case how is it possible for the Minister to say to the House on 15 May, and to repeat last night, that he knows nothing about it? I do not understand that. The Minister has not answered that question and he should not be allowed to avoid his responsibilities in this area.

A glimmer of the reason why that evasion is going on may be ascertained from the background of what we are talking about. The truth is that there are a small number of builders, some of them substantial, who have, for one reason or another, been allowed to ride roughshod over a lot of legislation on the statute books. I have been given an independent report this evening about electrical faults in housing estates, about which we have been on to the Minister in this House and in correspondence, which standards have led unfortunately to the deaths of a number of people either directly or indirectly. That is my contention. The builders involved in the latter case are well known to the Minister. Their name is no secret. Nobody wishes to pillory people who are not here themselves but there is one member of the Fianna Fáil Party who could have an opportunity to defend himself if he wished to appear. In relation to the CRV case I mentioned earlier, where it was apparently the intention of a building firm, Abbey Homesteads Limited, not to apply for CRVs——

Unfortunately the measures he takes are too limited. He says that section 18 has two main purposes. The first is to empower the Minister to require that certain loans by lending agencies for the purchase of new houses cannot be made unless a CRV is obtained.

The second is to impose clear obligations on builders in relation to the construction of houses for which they have obtained a CRV and of course to enable the Minister to take effective action and so on. What is the effective action? As far as I can see effective action allows for the possibility that a Minister might at his discretion refuse for a period not exceeding five years to consider any further application for a CRV from any person who has previously obtained a CRV and who has either supplied false or misleading information or failed to fulfil requirements under section 18. That is subsection (8) and it is an important provision which will enable the Minister to debar someone for five years.

The Minister is a lot longer at this game than I am but I know that that is a joke, because this town and the Companies Registration Office are cluttered with £100 limited companies who are here today and gone tomorrow, fly-by-nights. How is the Minister going to pin the offenders? How is he going to put the finger on a builder who abuses the regulations in this regard, who acts in defiance of the spirit of what the Minister and everybody else on this side of the House wants to achieve. Who exactly is the Minister going to debar for a period of five years? Will he debar a builder or a building company? May be there are answers to these questions and I look forward to hearing them when the Minister comes in to conclude.

All I can say is that one does not have to be a legal expert to recognise that a coach and four can be driven through that provision. It is being done at the moment to evade responsibilities. Limited companies are being set up for the purpose of building housing estates and are being liquidated almost immediately. Of course, relations or friends or some named individual on behalf of the builder sets up again the following day with a different name and there is apparently nothing anybody can do about it unless the will is there to have a look at company law, which is not under discussion at present. I see no reason why this proposal should be the slightest bit different.

Therefore, it is a bit of a gimmick unless it is backed up. Not alone that, but all the usual caveats are entered that before exercising this power the Minister will be required to notify the person concerned of his intention to do so. Of course there is the usual interminable right of appeal which could go on and on. Meanwhile the residents of a particular house will no doubt be pestering their public representatives with letters and questions will be raised here and in the end nothing will be done. In the end the CRV will be seen for what it apparently is in the eyes of the Minister: a pretty good stick to raise now and again at after-luncheon meetings when the Government want to appear to be on the side of the angels for a period.

If the Minister is serious he will surely retract or at least reconsider his statement that section 18 will provide a comprehensive statutory framework for the operation of a form of control in the prices of new houses and flats which benefit from State funds or which are financed by mortgages available from limited resources. Does anybody seriously believe that? The Minister, in all of his quite lengthy statement, never referred once to the price of serviced land which is a most germane and fundamental element in the whole question of the price of houses. There is no question there of the Minister doing anything unpleasant like, for example, controlling the price of houses or controlling the price of land or having a look at the Kenny Report and implementing a few of the proposals in it. That is not suggested because that is too near the bone and might mean hurting too many people to whom I honestly believe the Minister and the Government are in hock.

I have come to the firm belief that the clear moral imperative which a Government should have in this fundamental crucial area of housing has been sold down the river and that this Government are not therefore in a position to be able to legislate with the integrity necessary in the area of housing. That is what saddens me, not for myself because I am one of the fortunate ones, but for the 8,000 families presently on the corporation housing list and the unfortunate couples trying to raise money in the face of daily escalating mortgage prices and for the people all around this country who have been told that they will be given adequate housing, that they will be given £1,000 grants and that they will be cherished equally. The £1,000 grant is of course increasingly seen for what it is. It just escalated house prices by £1,000 in three months and I am sure in due course it will be readily forgotten even by people on the far side of the House.

The CRV, which is not the most fundamental element in the whole question of house finance, is certainly a useful lever which the Minister has if he chooses to exercise his options in the area. But I can see the row back beginning already. Indeed, the Minister's final comments this morning subsequent to representations from a number of associations indicated that he proposed amendments—and the Bill is not even off the ground—in relation to his refusal in certain cases to grant a CRV pursuant to subsection 3 (a) of section 18 that there would be the right of appeal to a court.

Let me say clearly that this party would never condone a situation where people did not have that right to appeal. But I honestly believe that the initial proposal of the Minister is too limited altogether if he considers that the CRV in that circumstances will be in any way effective as a statutory element in house price control. The CRV will simply continue to be, as it has always been, evaded and avoided. Indeed, even the Minister's reference to making certain loans conditional on the CRV is weak. Is the Minister willing to support a situation where local authorities and building societies and everybody else will give loans where there is not a CRV? Does the Minister turn his face against that categorically and unequivocally? Does he say, for example, that he will not subsidies building societies who will give loans where there is no CRV? What steps will he take to put meat and to put muscle on the sentiments which he expressed in the soft parts, the nebulous parts of the proposals here? We share his concern and indeed, though we are too modest to say so, we might claim that we had some small part in initiating the particular expression of his concern.

I recognise the difficulties the Minister has in this area. I recognise that it is very difficult in the face of the power of big business to introduce regulations but I firmly believe that the vast majority of building companies and building firms are of the most decent stock. Their practices and their standards are the highest. They deserve to be treated with respect and therefore it saddens me when the minority of unscrupulous builders can get away with blue murder. It puts the decent people at a disadvantage, as the Minister observed once again this morning. Therefore it is imperative, primarily for the sake of the people who need houses and even in the interests of good commerce, that the Minister should introduce measures that would be seen to be practicable and which would be effective.

I know that on a number of occasions Opposition parties are accused of being destructive and negative and always opposing for the sake of opposition. I do not intend to do that, but I must say that there are a number of omissions from the Bill. There are a number of measures which we would like to see in the Bill and which are indeed party policy and which, as far as I am concerned, could very well now be the beneficiary of some consideration from the Minister and his Department. If we are going to succeed in this whole housing area the basic tinkering which occurs in some of the areas here, the cosmetics which occur in more areas, the CRV type of approach, the softly, softly approach of hoping that everything will be all right on the day or that if it is not all right the Minister will be so far out of Government that he will not have to worry about it anyway, that will have to stop.

That sort of attitude is very negligent of the duty of a Government. We would like to see introduced, for example, a loan scheme for people which would give them more than the present levels of finance because unfortunately they are subject to review every now and again and are therefore subject to anomalies all the time. If one applies for a loan in the local authority sector immediately after the limit has been increased one is, relatively speaking, advantaged compared with people who will apply two or three years later. There should be annual index-linked revision of local authority loan limits if we are, in common justice, to ensure that one couple does not have a relative advantage from public funds over another couple and if we want in justice to reflect the soaring price of housing.

In the last 18 months we have seen unprecedented house price increases. The result has been not just the massive spec-profits for certain operators but, more tragically, the fact that a greater number of people have had to fall back on the local authority housing lists because they cannot afford to provide a house for themselves. If the Minister denies that, he is calling black white. The usual procedure is for pressure to be applied to increase local authority loan limits and, when the time is opportune, an announcement will be made that they will be increased. At a future date, when it is deemed suitable for political or other purposes, the increase will take place but in the meantime people are worried, are anxious and are fretting about putting together the deposit for a house. Index-linking of local authority loans would avoid that. It would also take into account factors which the public must take into account, increases in prices of all items, and it would be seen to be fair.

The Minister should also consider introducing a new type of loan scheme under which the loan advanced would relate to the amount of money saved by the applicant. That scheme could be complimentary to those operated by building societies and local authorities. In my view such a scheme would encourage people to save and those savings could be invested in a Government fund. Young couples would be encouraged to save rather than squandering their money as, unfortunately, too many of our young people do after getting their first job. There is no encouragement to save at present. I do not accept that such a move is up to the individual. We have a duty to point out to teenagers that within a few years they will be looking for a house and will need a substantial amount of money. It should be suggested to them that if they save the Government will meet their savings pound for pound. I am aware that certain social comments could be made about such a scheme and some may say that those who do not have money and who do not have a job will suffer, but in a comprehensive housing programme such individuals would be catered for in other ways to meet their needs. This is a time when imagination, flair and new ideas should be utilised in the housing sector.

There should be more support for housing co-operatives and for in-fill housing construction. The Minister congratulated the housing co-operative association and I should like to join with him in paying a compliment to that group. I would like to see more financial support for such co-operatives which are, essentially, non-profit making. Housing is a constitutional and basic right and is the environment from which all ill or good stems. Therefore, we should not spare any effort in encouraging people to get involved in self-help in this area. In the case of in-fill housing construction it is very sad to see streets like a mouthful of bad teeth with rotting decayed slums in their midst. Because of our traditional approach to housing policy we generally think that they are easier managed and that the economies of them are lower per unit and so on but there is room for doing a great deal more about in-fill. Not alone would we elevate the aesthetic, social and local environment of areas but we would be providing homes. In some cases the cost would be quite attractive particularly in view of the price of land.

Proposals for the simplification of the procedure governing the buying and selling of houses should be introduced. The buying and selling of a house, because it is related in terms of costs to the total price of the house, has escalated substantially. I am not aware that the amount of work has escalated, although I admit that the return for an hour of work has increased because people are being paid more. However, there are unwholesome elements in this. I am aware of people who have to pay up to £400 for the legal formalities attached to buying their houses. I cannot see any justification in an estate of 200 houses for that price being retained as cost in each case where, I am willing to bet, the work is essentially on a once-off basis and is then fundamentally, duplicated. It may be that there are good legal and technical reasons why that amount should be charged in such an estate, but I believe it is extremely unfair to ask people at the outset of their married life to pay out such a sum for a procedure that could be simplified to the extent of being little more than a car registration book. I am aware that it is not quite so simple because questions of title are involved but it could be simplified in the case of new houses. Would it be possible to introduce sliding scales for legal costs particularly in new housing estates where, it is arguable, the same work is done for all the purchasers?

It is clear that there will be a shortage of houses in Dublin city. I have failed to get any indication of the Minister's concern in this area. I should like to know if the Minister will seriously consider the situation in the city in relation to the prospects for housing. Dublin Corporation, the local authority for the area, have sites for approximately 2,000 houses. That is their total land bank. The number of people on the housing list in the total Dublin area is of the order of 8,000 families. That figure includes people who are anxious to go out to the county. The number of people who are anxious to live within the city boundary—the same area for which Dublin Corporation have sites for 2,000 houses—is in the order of 4,500 families. The sites for 2,000 houses is the only land bank Dublin Corporation have for ever. The amount of land being worked on at site development or construction of house stage is in the order of 650 or 670 houses.

If magically we could transform all the land in the possession of Dublin Corporation for the purposes of building houses we would not be able to house even half of those anxious to live in the city. There is a housing shortage in the city now, and it is deceitful for councillors and for the Minister to pretend that we have the answer to the problem. The truth is that we are about to wrench many families from their environment, to tear them from the areas of their birth and upbringing and implant them in a hostile clinical atmosphere outside the city, from which the husbands will probably commute into the city centre causing more transport problems, and in which many of the wives in growing number will have recourse to valium and other sedative drugs, according to the evidence of doctors.

What I am saying is that you cannot take housing policy in isolation from other social policies. I am concerned that every effort should be made to acquire land in the city first of all and then look at other possible options in relation to housing policy in the city. In regard to land acquisition in the city, does the Minister know that a recent survey was carried out not by the Department whose job one would imagine it to be, not by local authority, but by a group of students, voluntarily. It happens to be the most up-to-date information available on the area of dereliction in the city. The survey indicates that 9 per cent of the land area in Dublin is derelict, that is, 2,000 to 2,500 acres. It is hard to credit, but that is the information in the survey.

Anyway, it is acceptable in the face of lack of evidence to the contrary, and the contrary situation at the moment is that the Minister in his Department does not have an up-to-date inventory or list of areas of dereliction in any city. Neither does the local authority in Dublin have information on the number of derelict sites, the areas in which they exist, who owns them or what action the local authority propose to take. There is a certain amount of scratching going on but of course the Derelict Sites Act of 1961 is seen for what it is, and it is like throwing custard through a sieve to be talking about that Act.

As I have said, the availability of land is a major problem. It is something the Minister has not tackled in the Bill and I am therefore asking him to introduce legislation to make war on those who own derelect sites, to take into public ownership derelict sites when it is considered to be in the public interest to do so, always giving full consideration to the rights of individuals to make appeals, but not to have appeals interminably going through the courts, when the rights of people looking for houses would be totally outweighed by some mythical or mystical notions about the rights of private property. In many cases people do not know they own the property.

In the survey I have referred to, the extraordinary information emerged that some 40 per cent of the land deemed to be derelict is in unknown ownership. The Department do not know who owns it, the corporation do not know who owns it, and obviously that should nearly immediately fall within the ambit of public ownership. About 30 per cent of the remainder is in public ownership, presumably waiting for the elephantine consideration which Government Departments invariably give to proposals for utilisation of such sites. The remaining third is in private hands.

Therefore, it would be wrong for us at this stage to pretend that the problem of dereliction in Dublin is purely a matter of hard nosed private speculators who dream up schemes behind closed doors between puffs of cigar smoke. The truth is that much of the land is in public ownership and not a thing is being done about it although we have an acute housing and land shortage, all germane to house prices.

Apart from taking action on derelict sites, we should also consider a major grant scheme for the refurbishing of older houses in the city. Unfortunately there is not a provision in the Bill in this respect. It is timely to talk in these terms because if we find ourselves getting tight for acquisition of new land we should try to conserve what we have. There is no activity or interest in that area and consequently we have rows and rows of what have become known as tenement type houses. They are structurally sound, in many cases suitable for large families, and in some cases for two families, though I do not consider that to be ideal.

Instead of encouragement in this respect, what is happening is that we have a system under which people living in these dwellings are encouraged to assist in their destruction so that conditions can become so bad that the families living in them will gain recognition by the local authority and therefore be rehoused. The situation is so bad that the local authority find their hands tied and they are not able to act unless a court order has been got for eviction.

The situation is, therefore, that people are being compelled to live in bad circumstances, in some cases hoping to God the situation will get worse so that the place will be condemned or declared unfit to get them out of the hovels they are in. It is an extraordinary policy but that is the situation at the moment. That is why I have suggested a major grant scheme for refurbishing older houses as a plank towards combating the present waste and dereliction of such dwellings.

I should like to see what has been referred to as a ballon mortgage scheme. A general peripheral provision has been made in the Bill in that regard, but it is not sufficiently graduated and it is not flexible enough. Apparently the principle has been considered by somebody without sufficient imagination to work out a scheme which could be applicable to individual cases. The scheme I am advocating would have repayments at their lowest in the early years— indeed I suggest there should not be any repayments in the first year, but repayments would then commence and would be increased until the full loan had been repaid. I should like to distinguish between that kind of increase and the increase that is occuring at present.

After the first five or six years of a married couple in a mortgage house they find themselves relatively well able to cope. At the price of mortgages now, I am not sure anybody is able to cope at any time. I have seen people having to sit on orange boxes while they wondered about repayments to building societies, and that is the year in which they are likely to have a child. That is a most unsatisfactory environment for the commencement of a family.

Would the Minister consider having a scheme which would allow the first year free of repayments? The repayments later would probably be a little easier, and I suggest that most couples would welcome the breathing space. Deposits nowadays can be anything between £3,000 and £5,000—I do not know how couples manage them. The scheme I am suggesting would allow couples to get some furniture around them and it would ease the extreme anxiety they suffer if the woman has a child, and so forth. They would be able to settle down to the new personal relationships of marriage and they could concentrate on knitting the marriage together well. They will have other bills to pay anyway, but the big lump sum of anything up to £300 a month could be put aside for a year.

I ask the Minister to consider that, and then the grading of repayments in the following years. I am now talking about a repayment situation which may go into the second or third generation, but I believe that most couples would welcome this kind of compassionate approach to repayments at the beginning. Many couples at the moment are in extreme shock because of having to repay the vast sums demanded in the first vital year of marriage, often not knowing where the next meal will come from. I do not think that is the kind of environment the Minister wants new families to set up in.

There are also other couples who find they have not sufficient money to pay the deposit on a house and yet they are not eligible for the local authority housing lists. Those are the people who fall between two stools. I would like the Minister to consider a suggestion from this party on what we call a shared purchase scheme where part interest in a house is bought out pending the purchaser's readiness or ability to buy outright. That scheme would allow a purchaser to say: "I have sufficient deposit to raise a loan now to buy half of the house". I know there are problems attached to the scheme and the Minister might consider it is rather unusual. A house which is part owned by a person would inevitably receive more attention. If such a scheme was adopted it would give those people a stake in the community, which is very important. A man who rang me yesterday had been waiting six years in a particular flat to get out of it but he has no chance of getting out of it. He told me had wasted six years. That man considered that the first six years of his married life were wasted in that flat. His flat was a waiting room and there was no point in putting money into it as he hoped eventually to get out of it.

Could we not say to such a person that we would let him own a quarter interest in a house or a half interest in a house and later on if he could find the money or he could get assistance in some way he could buy out the rest of it. This idea is worthy of consideration because there would be a desire among young people to have a stake in the community. This is a very narrow Bill and does not take any consideration of suggestions like that.

I would like the Minister to consider the possibility of introducing a regulation which would allow local authorities to purchase second-hand houses. This could be done in two ways. One way is to go to elderly people living alone, whose families have now left them and who are often, particularly in urban areas, living in very large houses in which there are from three to five rooms where nothing happens except the rooms become damper as time goes on. Further down the road from some of those people there are some other houses which are over-populated. We should be able to marry the various housing resources. I would like to see local authorities being free to invest in houses like that, indeed, as a scheme suggested by ACRA stated, to be able to purchase houses from elderly people on the basis that those people would be allowed remain in their houses until they died. Those houses would then become the property of local authorities. Obviously there would have to be some financial consideration where the local authorities would have to commit themselves to buy such houses possibly at today's price for houses which would not be theirs until some time in the future. Another way of doing it might be to pay the people living in such houses a certain sum of money weekly or monthly, which would have to be offset against repairs and remedial attention to the houses.

There is, in city areas particularly, a vast amount of unused private housing, which elderly people would be quite willing to sell. Many of those people would be only too happy to sell their houses to the Minister or to local authorities if they had security of tenancy and a few pounds to spend in the meantime. This would mean that a substantial amount of housing would be released now. It should be borne in mind that when those houses become realisable assets they are assets obtained at prices in ten to 20 years' time for today's prices. That is not a bad deal. It would take an economist to work out the actual percentages and the kind of sliding scale that is involved. I would like to see the Minister take the initiative in this area. It is not an innovation in this part of the world. I understand that a scheme something like this operates in France. It is worthy of consideration by the Minister.

I should like the Minister to consider introducing amendments with specific reference to insulation and general antienergy wastage. I hope the Minister is concerned about this as he has referred to it previously but I do not believe enough emphasis has been placed on it. Deputy Kelly recently referred to the amount of money the Government have spent on campaigns to conserve energy. Surely, when one considers the amount of money involved in owning and running a house today it is only good economic sense, sound social sense and good policy, energywise, to ensure that people are educated to conserve energy? I am afraid we do not get much encouragement in this Bill. The Minister might say that the conservation of energy is not essentially a housing matter but I believe it is.

There is massive wastage of energy in houses. Many people have never considered the idea of insulation. I believe the introduction of district heating schemes for the purpose of heating estates is relevant to the question of the financial approach to housing. I mention this because if the Department of the Environment can procure greater funds for the provision of houses so that the various local authorities can provide more houses, then obviously our housing problem will not be as bad as it is now. We should ensure that the heating of houses is done as economically as possible.

I would like to see the Minister introducing stronger measures to compel developers to finish estates. Although it is not a great problem in my constituency I am very familiar with the plaintive cries of people from other areas where there is no statutory provision to insist on developers actually finishing estates before they leave. This refers back to what I said earlier on about road builders who can escape without carrying out their full responsibilities. There are strong complaints about the way many estates are not properly finished before the road builders leave. That is very relevant to house development. I would like to see the Minister having stronger powers in relation to that matter.

The Minister should consider a campaign to combat the road builders, about whom I know he is very concerned. While stressing that the Construction Industry Federation and the vast majority of builders are decent professional people I believe there is room for initiatve, which might have a bearing on company law, and it may be necessary for the Minister to have consultations with his colleague, the Minister for Justice. I ask the Minister to get together a convention of interests in the building profession, people like the Construction Industry Federation and the other representative organisations and work out a campaign which will ensure that the unworthy members of that profession are put to the wall. This is too serious a business to be trifled with by people whose only interest is in making the maximum profit in the shortest possible time with scant consideration for the effect that has on people purchasing houses.

In relation to the cost of local authority housing land, I ask the Minister to initiate a public inquiry. I am convinced there is need for a public inquiry in this sector. I have never understood how the local authority house per unit is higher in price in almost all cases than a similar type house built by a private builder. I am aware that perhaps there is greater surveillance on the standards and quality of the local authority houses in some cases, although as the Minister knows there were a number of cases not long ago where the standards of surveillance fell down and so did the house.

The Minister should ask one of his officials to carry out an investigation into the names and tenders forwarded in reply to advertisements by local authorities through the country and particularly in Dublin in the past six or seven years. It would be interesting to see if a pattern emerged. I am not sure whether it would but I am inclined to think it would. That pattern might or might not be meaningful, but certainly some explanation is needed apart from off-the-cuff references to the price of acquiring land, which is true for all builders.

Some explanation is necessary about the extremely high cost of local authority houses which more than a year ago the Minister for Economic Planning and Development said could assume proportions as high as £26,000 or £27,000 per unit. Incidentally, this figure was put forward as an argument in favour of encouraging the private sector as opposed to the local authority sector as though the private sector had a magic want to keep land prices down and so on. The irony is that the local authority housing sector is supposed to be non-profitmaking and yet it is more expensive. I know that there may be reasons why the private house situation may be a little more reasonable, perhaps having something to do with economies of scale on the edge of the city, but I am not satisfied with that. On behalf of this party I ask the Minister to initiate a public inquiry into the cost of local authority housing. If the Minister lifts that stone it would be very interesting to see what is underneath.

In view of the shrinking allocation for local authorities from the Department I have increasing sympathy for them. The housing problem is the greatest problem I have encountered as a public representative. About 60 per cent or 70 per cent of the representations I get relate to housing and I suspect other Deputies have a similar experience. The situation is getting worse. The ability to help these people is lessening. At best all it means is jostling one person further down the line in favour of somebody else on the grounds that perhaps are just better argued or employed. Local authorities are fair and just in their housing allocations. Occasionally there are allegations that all is not well in that regard, but I know that the officials in Dublin Corporation are painstaking in their endeavours to ensure fair play and justice. The tragedy is that there are simply not enough houses, and no amount of manipulation or references in green or white papers to the need for revision of the points system will alter the essential fact that there are not enough houses. This Bill will ensure that there will not be any more houses than the very moderate gradual output obtaining at present.

I should like to ask the Minister to consider another suggestion, namely, allowing local authorities to become more involved in non-social housing for the purpose of boosting revenue. Occassionally one reads of some Minister returning home with a large grant—as an urban Deputy I would point out that it usually applies to a rural area—for some scheme or undertaking. I do not deny the right of the rural community to enjoy a decent standard of living and I wish them all the best with that. The Minister may say they have no money to carry out any suggestion but a number of avenues could be explored. Capital could be raised abroad or at home, because capital is available for any scheme where there will be a return.

The Minister might allow the local authorities to become involved in non-social housing. I have never understood why local authorities are expected to pick up what might be called the "lame duck" element in our society and I do not say that in any way disparagingly. In the area of the private housing sector there is the belief that there is almost a God-given right to cream off the profitable end of the housing market. It is an unwritten rule that a couple with a child cannot get a place in a private housing situation. That is unjust, unchristian and amoral and it should be illegal. However, that is another story.

I want to ensure that the local authority have flexibility, that the kind of estate that was mistakenly built at Ballymun could be utilised in another way. I could see that estate being quite suitable as a local authority estate for bedsitters. I am not very keen on highclass flats but as they are there we must accept the reality. There are no gardens back or front but the flats themselves are very good. There are situations like that which could be used to make money. I am not talking of exploiting people in private rented accommodation but I am talking of making a reasonable return which could be used for social housing which is the primary responsibility of a local authority. The main argument against the suggestion is lack of finance but finance could be borrowed because it could be returned, unlike many of the funds for social housing. Essentially they are written off and this is quite right because it is an investment in underwriting a basic constitutional commitment. Non-social housing would be profit-making and there should be no apology about it. I should like the Minister to investigate that possibility.

That proposal, allied to my earlier proposal of being involved in buying once-off houses—sometimes occupied by elderly people—would have the useful social advantage of encouraging a better mix. Many of us are sick and tired of the ghetto mentality with regard to local authority housing. Fortunately that shadow is dying and the sooner the better. There is no reason why one category of people should be sectioned off from other categories. It would be accepted by all that a good mix of all classes and categories is the right thing and my proposals would encourage that.

Elderly people and single people have problems when they try to buy their own homes. The Minister did not refer to this matter and perhaps he would consider it now. Elderly people have come through a fairly lean period. In the case of some senior civil servants—when I say senior I do not necessarily mean seniority in rank but in terms of age—they may not have been able 20 years ago to put the money together for a deposit on a house. In some cases, they find themselves obliged to move out of houses which are tied to certain occupations, such as prison officers, gardai and so on. I am very conscious of this because it comes quite close to home. When these men needed money it was not there. It is now too late for them to buy houses because very few people will give a loan to a man of 59 years of age facing retirement on a slim pension. These people find their daughters and sons are earning more than they are and have a better chance of getting housing loans. I know these people are not a big lobby and will not walk the streets of Dublin or articulate their grievances, but there is a social problem here and I would like the Minister to consider it.

There are a number of answers. These people could be given loans which could be guaranteed in some cases by their sons and daughters. I have always felt it was most discriminatory that Army officers, prison officers, gardaí and so on, who, by virtue of their occupation, were moved around the country—sometimes they were given only a couple of hours' notice—lived in tied accommodation but because of their transferability were actively discouraged from being able to save or purchase a house even if they had the money. These people now find themselves in a very serious situation. I know one man who had a nervous breakdown because of the anxieties and worries facing him. These people need attention.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is extending the scope of the Bill, which is already very wide. He is making an Estimate speech.

Mr. Keating

This Bill is deficient in a number of respects. Some single people come into the same category as the elderly. One of the ironies of this housing situation at the moment is that some single people find it more economic to buy a house than to rent a flat. This is an example of waste. I am pointing out the areas of waste where this Bill could be modified to cope with these situations. I know some young women who are at present buying their own homes—and good luck to them—and who, up to now might have been living in rented accommodation. I wonder if we are juggling our resources to the best advantage.

I understand there is no reference in this Bill to the area of housing finance for flat accommodation in the private rented sector. This is the Cinderella of the housing area. There are approximately 300,000 people in private rented accommodation. In many cases they live under conditions which are not ideal. In some cases this is indefensible and smells of Rachmanism. In many other cases it is a little more understandable in view of the outdated way we have treated this area. The Minister should consider amendments in this area. It is not unreasonable to expect that the private rented accommodation sector which accommodates so many people should be the beneficiary of the same largesse which applies to other areas of the housing spectrum.

A massive grant scheme should be provided so long as people maintain their houses for the purpose of giving accommodation. We should encourage this. We should review the Rent Restrictions Act. We should set up an independent rent tribunal. We should do all things that are right and proper in this area so that the pressure is taken off the areas of primary concern, that is, the insatiable demands for finance in the local authority and private housing sectors. This legitimate area is doing great work. As I said, it is the Cinderella area of housing.

What have we got? Neglect. Conditions are very bad. There is substantial abuse which may or may not be the fault of landlords and/or tenants. This is an area of challenge for the Minister but regrettably there is nothing in the Bill about it. Perhaps the Minister would look at this again since private rented accommodation is a legitimate part of housing policy and deserves consideration in terms of legislative and financial attention because of the impact it would have on the other areas which are demanding the Minister's attention.

We are told that the big problem in housing is finance. Section 18 deals with new house prices. In his efforts to try to combat this the Minister said that he was convinced there was a need for a satisfactory framework for the operation of controls in the price of new houses. We welcome that conviction. We would welcome it even more if something practical had been done about it—for example, if he said he had controlled the price of building land or building profits or the price of new houses. Any of these proposals would be worthy of consideration. It is much easier for the Minister to say he is convinced there is a need for a framework for the operation of control in the price of new houses. That is an interesting semantic exercise. Look carefully at the words used. The Minister is convinced not that the Government need introduce a particular scheme but that there is a need for a framework for the operation of controls in the price of houses. What he really means is that he hopes certain peripheral measures he takes will have the effect of depressing house prices. In other words, he will not take responsibility in this area; he will leave it to somebody else. That is the fault of this Bill, of this Minister and of the Government in this area. The nettle has not been grasped, to use a cliché.

The scourge for so many young people today is the price of a house. The irony is that the Government will not win anyway, because if they do not tackle this problem in a realistic way they will have to tackle it through the local authority scheme. If the local authority allocation is persistently reduced as a percentage of expenditure on housing, as it has been since this Government came into power, the people will be on the streets.

A new look must be taken at the whole question of local authority fund raising. Where is the money to come from? I do not believe this country should be going abroad cap in hand looking for loans. Every time we get a loan it is hailed as a major initiative. On a news bulletin last week there was not even a mention of the interest rates to be paid. It is as if loans were God's gift and we did not have to repay them. We will not have to repay these loans but our children will, if they can ever see over the debt we are getting into and for very shallow purposes in some cases.

The banks, the insurance companies and pension trusts should carry more of the burden. The Minister should talk to them and put pressure on them so that funds lying dormant should be used for the good of all the people. They should not be allowed simply to gather wealth for a few people. The amount of money being provided by these institutions in recent years has been decreasing as a percentage of total expenditure on housing. The Minister should get after these companies. He should use some sort of moral force and, if that does not work, use legislative force to ensure that the basic fundamental need of decent housing for all our people is met. I am not suggesting that the Minister should engender friction with our financial institutions, but if the Government do not dictate the pace and trends in this area there is no point in having a Government. A lot more should be done in that area.

A recent report from the NESC called Urbanisation and Regional Development in Ireland shows clearly that there will be an enormous burgeoning demand for housing in the city of Dublin and in other areas. If we are going to deal with it we have a long way to go, not only in relation to the kind of schemes for housing grants, subsidies and loans to which the Minister referred today, but in relation to our basic vision of social development for housing generally. Whether we like it or not, money being spent on housing as a percentage of total expenditure in the public area is declining. That is extremely unfortunate because the demand is going up all the time. Presumably the Minister has to battle with his colleagues around the Cabinet table to get the extra finance, but the social argument is the most compelling one here. If we invest the money now—I use the word “invest” deliberately—we will offset the need to have to spend money later on remedial schemes and schemes for building a plethora of places like Loughan House. If we give housing the priority which it deserves in social policy and if we try to create the domestic environment to which people are entitled, we will never regret it.

There is much in the Bill with which nobody could disagree. The Bill contains provisions to strengthen the present statutory basis for the control of prices of certain new private houses and flats. That is inadequate, and I would like the Minister to have the courage of his convictions. From the tenor of his remarks on a number of occasions I know that he has a passionate dedication to trying to make progress in this area. Leadership here would be responded to. Let him take the necessary measures and implement them and the respect which people have for him will grow and great social and economic good will follow.

The Bill will give more flexibility to housing authorities in allocating their houses and will empower the Minister for the Environment to direct the housing authorities to sell or not to sell houses of a specified class. That also is welcome. It empowers the local authority to have greater flexibility in that area. Generally the idea is commendable in so far as it places more autonomy and more sovereignty in local hands.

The reference that the Minister made to the arrangements which were terminated on the introduction of the new State grant schemes in respect of new houses and house improvements with effect from 6 July and 1 November 1977 respectively, in order to avoid unnecessary duplication of administration, is also well noted and I am glad that provision is in the Bill. I have mentioned the cognisance which the Minister has taken of the expansion of co-operative housing activities in recent years and I would like to see more financial support and more back-up for them. Apart from the solitary and very worthy acknowledgement which the Minister gives of the effort, there is not a great deal more to help in this Bill. The Minister stated that the Government are anxious that NABCo be given every encouragement and have accordingly approved a grant towards their administrative and general expenses in 1979. Greater budgetary powers and fiscal possibilities would be more in line, but a grant towards administrative and general expenses is always helpful. The Minister might consider giving them a budget of some kind or empowering local authorities to do so to a greater extent than is possible at present.

Sections 4 to 6 of the Bill have been drafted on the basis that a broad general power is conferred on the Minister or a housing authority to pay grants for specified purposes. This is commendable. We look forward to seeing the regulations governing the principal features of the grants. I am pleased that the Minister wants in the future to simplify still further the grants scheme. Many of the grant schemes are so tortuously spelled out and so labyrinthine in the complexity of the literature accompanying them that one would need to be a cross between an Einstein and a professor of English to understand them. This applies to all types of Government grants. I have no doubt that much money and many possibilities are lost because people are unable to come to grips with the proposals. Simplification is necessary so that people can understand their rights.

I welcome the Minister's reference to the accommodation of physically disabled people and the extension of that scheme in 1975 to include severely mentally handicapped people. There is some evidence that we are succumbing to pressure from lobby groups only. All people have a right to be heard but the weakest in our society, people like the handicapped and the blind, are represented by groups whose spokesmen are often reticent and whose experience of bringing pressure to bear is often limited. I would ask the Minister to take bold initiatives in this area and to insist on local authorities playing their part. I may take the opportunity of corresponding with the Minister on some minor details relating to this area, assuming correspondence in the normal sense will soon be resumed.

I now refer to the important scheme relating to the making of grants to approved bodies providing housing and caretaker accommodation for elderly persons. This is very worthy. I know of many people who are condemned to live in garrets where they lead lonely, lean existences far removed from the romanticism of the stereotyped artist or painter. My constituency has a great deal of that type of accommodation and this proposal will undoubtedly help these people.

I welcome the proposal to increase unsecured loans to people carrying out improvement works and the decreased amount of administrative work which will accompany these proposals in the future. The Minister proposes to increase these loans from £200 to £600. This will have a good effect, although I am not sure what the extent of the impact will be.

Section 9 will enable the Minister to pay a subsidy to housing authorities towards the annual loan charges incurred by them in providing sites for private housing, subject to such regulations as may be made. This is precisely the kind of section which could be open to certain amendment. These sites are sometimes provided without sufficient guarantees about the full spirit and letter of all that attaches to the housing being carried out. We should insist on certain guarantees or bonds so that the provision of sites for private housing will be tightened up. Something must be done to stop complaints about unfinished estates. The Minister stated:

I have taken steps to increase the supply of serviced land by increasing substantially the allocation for sanitary services this year and I asked local authorities last August to consider the development of part of their land reserves with a view to making sites available for private housing, particularly as an incentive to tenants or prospective tenants of their houses to secure their own accommodation.

I have already referred to the difficulty experienced by some local authorities because they do not have the land. The compulsory purchase order procedures which enable them to acquire land are outdated and I do not anticipate that there will be any remarkable improvement in their capacity in this area. The financial potential which a local authority have does not necessarily result in a greater provision of serviced sites. The cost of serviced sites is very germane to the whole area of housing finance. I am worried that the reference might be a little superficial and may not zone in on the right area. The increased allocation is obviously welcome.

The Minister referred to the provision in section 10 (6) whereby, in the case of moneys borrowed from the Commissioners of Public Works, subsidy can also be effected by writing off moneys owed to the commissioners by housing authorities. This would give rise to some savings in administrative costs. The Minister should look at the whole area of overlapping and duplication in administration which, because of the varying grant schemes and the burgeoning weight of documentation, may be unnecessarily costly. The Minister says that unfortunately it is not feasible to introduce this change just yet and he might explain in his reply why this is so.

We must welcome also the recent modification in the scheme which will allow certain two-person families to qualify for the low rise mortgage scheme. I am glad the Minister acknowledges the fact that two-person families—or single-parent families—are on the increase. They have a representative group in this city who are concerned about the availability of housing. In the local authority context housing needs are usually assessed on the number of heads in the household and not on the intricate and sometimes traumatic psychological needs of people, which are admittedly hard to quantify for the purposes of allocating housing. Because a mother and child are classified only as two people they can get relatively scant attention. The low rise mortgage scheme may be the answer and I am convinced this is so. It is essentially a loan scheme. Without wishing to fall into the trap of categorising any element in society in a particular way, there is reason to believe that a substantial number of single parents might not have ready access to the kind of deposit necessary in the case of a low rise mortgage scheme. We might have to go a little further. At least this recognition by the Minister is welcome and I hope it will be reflected in other Government Departments which will probably be dealing with this issue on an increasing scale.

I am glad to see the Minister is concerned about delays in having pre-sale work completed. These delays hold up the sale of local authority houses. Last week in reply to a question here the Minister expressed concern when I told him that in some cases it can take two years. The Minister's suggestion is sensible and will allow people to get on with the jobs involved and recoup the cost later. I am slightly worried about what I might call public distrust of recoupments from Government Departments. There is not a great deal of enthusiasm in that area on the part of members of the public who bewail the fact that it takes many months to get back money to which they are entitled. I would ask the Minister to ensure that the financial transaction between the individual and the local authority will be so expeditious that no extra cost will be incurred.

Section 60 (8) of the 1966 Act requires a housing authority, in determining the order of priority to be followed in letting local authority houses in accordance with their approved scheme of letting priorities, to obtain and have regard to a report from their chief medical officer. Medical certificates have become an increasing factor. I would not be surprised if the chief housing allocations officer in Dublin city assumed that a medical certificate was an essential qualification for an applicant. The vast majority of applications are accompanied by a medical certificate. In some cases they carry little or no weight. The problems in this area are very delicate. I am not over-happy about the degree to which the Minister appears to have confidence in the suggestion—unless I misinterpret him—that the staff of housing authorities could perform certain duties in the assessment of these certificates. Maybe that is not what the Minister meant. Maybe there are certain types of certificates which could be assessed by somebody who is not a medical practitioner.

We are talking here about medical, psychological and psychosomatic factors which are difficult to quantify. Harassed housing officials might be unable to give them adequate time and consideration due to pressure of other work, and might find they have not the skills necessary to evaluate such statements fully. I am not sure that the medical profession would be overjoyed either. If a particular type of illness or disability is certified as being experienced by the applicant, the medical practitioner involved might feel aghast at the fact that the certificate is apparently open to any one of a number of people. Possibly the question of medical ethics would be involved.

I know many people who are reticent about opening the letter they get from the doctor. One lady of my acquaintance underwent an operation and when she came out she looked quite well. When I asked her how she felt she said she felt very well. When I asked her what she suffered from and what the operation was all about she said: "I am afraid I do not know." She had not the courage to ask the doctor. There is a time-honoured reverence for the medical certificate. I am not sure that the medical profession or the applicant would be all that happy about its being opened up in the way in which the Minister appears to imply that it may be opened up.

The Minister said the system of certifying reasonable value in respect of the prices of new houses and flats no longer provides an adequate statutory framework for the operation of this form of control on house prices. I do not believe the new regulations will make the slightest difference to the price of houses. They will make certain differences in what might be called the administration of the CRV system. They are bound to mean some slight improvement for some people. They could also mean a disimprovement for other people. Certain builders might now pitch their prices very high. This relatively innocent proposal could mean that, in order to ensure that adequate profits are made, people would insist on certain types of CRVs whereas heretofore they may have been willing to settle for slightly less.

There should be a mandatory control by the Department of the Environment not just on monitoring house prices but even certificates of reasonable value and land prices. This is a very fundamental area and there should be no apology from the Government for stepping in, in the wake of an 18-month period when house prices rose by anything up to 50 per cent, and saying they intend to take an initiative, whoever likes or whoever does not like it. That would earn respect for the Minister and his colleagues. The Minister said a flexible approach must be adopted and controls adjusted in consultation with interested bodies to take account of changing circumstances.

That can only be called a let-out clause. It is a classic of its kind. It uses all the appropriate phrases: "flexible approach", "controls adjusted", "consultation with interested bodies", "changing circumstances". It is the Achilles heel of that proposal. There can be no ambiguity if a Bill is introduced which specifically states that something will be such-and-such in accordance with the law of the land. When the Minister introduces a framework within which certain things are expected to occur, and the Minister feels in his heart that they will not occur, and I feel in my mind and in my heart that they will not occur, I get very worried. I would be even more worried if I were waiting to buy a new house. I am a little unhappy about that, to put it mildly. I do not think it will work.

The suggestions the Minister makes are helpful but I do not think they go far enough. He suggested that certain loans might be required to be accompanied by a CRV before they could be obtained. That is a good suggestion but there is a possibility of avoiding or evading it. Some months ago the Minister found difficulty in trying to ensure that the lending agencies would comply with his request in relation to loans for houses up to a certain value. There were obvious difficulties in implementing that because there was no statutory backup. Here we have a proposal which apparently goes a little further. I wish him luck and I hope it works, but I do not think it will. The fundamental approach to house prices is too weak.

Steps are to be taken to reconcile the anticipated level of mortgage lending for new houses with the financial needs of the national housing programme. The Minister must be extremely worried about the mortgage rate. I do not see anything in the Bill which would give any consolation there. Perhaps the Minister has a separate proposal. If there is any area of social policy which is most fundamental surely it is housing. If we give all our resources, all our ideas and all our commitments, and the necessary legislation, to ensuring that young couples and the not so young individuals to whom I referred earlier on have a chance of providing a decent domestic environment for themselves and their children, a major advance will be made, and the social malaise which afflicts many urban centres in other countries and which is being duplicated here tragically, will be avoided. A great deal of it stems from bad housing and the pressure it places on marriages and on young people growing up. All these things do not have to be spelled out.

As Minister for the Environment responsible for housing, the Minister has the opportunity to introduce dramatic initiatives in this area. I appeal to him to look at the Bill again, to consider the improvements which could be made, if necessary to introduce a new Bill, to consider some of the suggestions we have made in an effort to be constructive, and to provide a great deal more than is in this Bill. We wish the best to all the proposals in the Bill and we hope they are successful, with the reservations we mentioned earlier.

Mr. O'Toole

Any debate on housing is of great importance both economically and socially and I am glad to have an opportunity of contributing to it. The economic and social factors in the housing sphere are of the utmost importance to people.

The Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1979, contains many worth-while provisions and few innovations. The package seems to have been put together in a furtive way. The Minister seems to be looking over his shoulder at people he fears might exert some pressure for some reason or other. This is the impression I get from reading the Bill and from the Minister's speech. Bodies such as the CIF exert pressure to look after their own interest and their own people. At times one wonders whether the political head of a Department, while he should consult with these people and seek their views as they are experts in their own field, should not take his courage in his hands in dealing with an area as important as housing.

In dealing with housing one is dealing with the largest investment of a family. The rights of the house purchaser ought to override any other consideration. I am speaking about the basic idea of value for money. We have consumer legislation covering advertising and, while we have further legislation pending in the Sale of Goods Bill, such legislation excludes housing—something which is very strange. We are left with a scheme which was initiated and is being implemented by people who have a vested interest in housing and in the construction industry generally. This is a wrong approach. The Minister should see to it that the regulations governing value for money and guaranteeing consumers their rights come from this House.

As a member of two local authorities and as a Deputy I am very interested in social housing. The concern I express about the provision of local authority houses is based on some years of experience. There is a backlog of houses to be provided. There is a problem regarding the type of house being provided and of ensuring the proper location of the houses. Not many weeks ago, dealing with this problem in a Private Members' Motion, the Minister reluctantly admitted that there was a limit in the case of isolated cottages. The words "unit cost" were mentioned. There is a limit to the amount of money allowed for the provision of an isolated cottage. I know this to my cost. Local authorities who seek tenders from contractors for the provision of houses or isolated cottages find that they cannot accept these because they are in excess of the guidelines laid down, be they unit cost or whatever. In my own county I know of three cases where it is nine months since tenders were received for houses. They have yet to be commenced simply because no contractor was prepared to take them at the going rate, that is the limit rate beyond which the local authority cannot let them to a contractor. This is a problem and it is unfair. We are dealing with people who cannot provide this facility for themselves. They are depending on the Minister, on the Government and on the local authority, and they are let down. It is not good enough. They are in a hopeless position and cannot make their voices heard.

In regard to isolated cottages, as I said before there are subtle pressures being used by local authorities to force people into housing schemes rather than building for them in their own localities. This may be due to pressure on them to extend their allocation of money as far as possible. I presume that the provision of ten houses on one site would be cheaper than providing ten houses on ten separate sites. Sight must not be lost of the social and compassionate aspect of providing housing.

There are people who are dependent on others to provide them with the basic right which they have by law, the right to be housed. They are being pushed around. While the saving of money and the provision of housing at the lowest rate possible is a laudable objective, at the same time the pressures under which these people are put is not to the credit of any Minister or Government. I am not blaming the Minister for it, but he should look into it. He is talking here about flexibility and consultation. This is one area where a flexible approach ought to be applied and the Minister should be seen to be impressing this upon the minds of the people in the local authorities and in the health boards and so on who are in the field dealing with these people.

I would also like to mention another area where an anomaly has arisen and it concerns the abolition of rates. This idea started some years ago when the National Coalition intended to abolish rates on a yearly basis over a four-year period. Fianna Fáil did it in one go and abolished rates on domestic dwellings thereby losing revenue to the Exchequer which they had to provide by other means.

There are two anomalies which arise from that. The people who have benefited most from this are the people in the very large houses with high valuations. A recent anomaly has also arisen in that the major increases in rents that have taken place in the case of local authority houses have hit the local authority tenants. Indeed, in many cases, the increased rents now demanded are in excess of the rates they would have been paying had the rates not been abolished. While that has happened the biggest beneficiaries, the people in the big houses with big valuations, are not paying rent to anybody; they are still off the hook and they are not asked for an increase in anything at the moment. Again there is a very definite anomaly here and I feel that it is something that the Minister might consider looking at to see if there is any possible way to ensure that there is equality of treatment for tenants as against people who own their own houses and who are now rate-free.

There is a further anomaly and a very blatant one which arises again in the case of local authority houses. There are many local authority houses, many of them built many years ago. Even yet these have not got the facility of water and sewerage schemes. They are, by definition, substandard and, as the Minister is aware, if a tenant in that house without sanitary facilities applies for a grant for reconstruction, the provision of sanitary services would have to be part of that reconstruction in order to get the grant. In other words he would not get away with putting in doors and windows and qualify for a grant without providing what is regarded as a basic requirement, the provision of sanitary services. So, by the Minister's own definition, these houses are substandard. While on the one hand that can be said and is being said, the local authority, the Exchequer and the Minister come along and expect an increased rent from the tenant. There is something very wrong with that kind of double think attitude. On the other hand, a person is living in a substandard house and it qualifies for nothing, yet the Minister, the local authority, the Government, the Exchequer are benefiting from the acceptance of rent from that unfortunate tenant. There is something here that is very wrong. I suggest to the Minister that the number of these houses is diminishing in relation to the total housing stock in the country.

I know of one local authority, an urban council, which a few weeks ago decided to investigate the possibility of providing bathrooms and toilets in the houses they had without these facilities in their area. They ran into the problem of the cost of this and the fact that the repayments falling on the tenants in such houses would be excessive and discovered that the tenants would be incapable of making the repayments. In those circumstances surely the onus ought to be on the Minister and on the Government to provide a once-off grant in the estimate for housing to provide houses, from whose tenants they are accepting rents, with sanitary services. It would be a very generous gesture and it would be a sensible one because he would be improving the local authority housing stock and he would eliminate this blatant anomaly that is there at the moment. It is something for which the Minister would be thanked and it would be a very worth-while and laudible approach by him. It is something which would not cost that much, in relation to the total cost of the housing vote.

The question of house purchase schemes was also referred to by Deputy Keating. We have had in the past experience of different house purchase schemes. There are certain provisions relating to concessions in schemes down through the years where tenants are given credit for rent paid up to a ten-year period at 3 per cent per annum. So, together with the grant originally paid, they get a 30 per cent reduction in the market value of the house. I have here this green Fianna Fáil housing policy which was circulated in large numbers some few years ago. The first provision that I note is to give tenants who purchased prior to 1973 a reduction of one quarter of the number of repayments, for example, seven and a half years repayments on a 30-year term.

That is a very laudable suggestion and, coming at election time, it was a very fine vote-catching gesture. There is here at the moment a certain house purchasers' association and they feel that they are in a very strong position to make a claim that this kind of suggestion would be implemented in their case. They maintain that in 1968 a house purchase scheme was introduced and, as Deputy Keating has said, due to the kind of publicity this got and possibly due to the terminology used, the tenants of the day did not know what they were entitled to and let this house purchase scheme slip by. It was 1974 before they discovered that many people were eligible for inclusion in a house purchase scheme which would give them ownership of their own house. They feel that because of their own culpable ignorance and because of the fact that the Department of Local Government, or the local authority in question, did not handle the matter properly or give it the desirable publicity instructing the tenants of their rights under the provisions of the purchase scheme, they are entitled to consideration and to the concession of the seven and a half years write-off in a 30-year period. It would be a gesture of goodwill in many of those cases if the Minister did that because most of those people are finding it difficult to meet the mortgages they arranged after purchase.

The question of structural repairs is a very thorny problem which causes long delays in many cases. The Minister in his introductory speech stated that he will introduce a certain degree of flexibility in this regard in operating what he described as the optional procedure, that the tenant may get somebody outside a local authority to carry out structural repairs. The problem is that, unless the Minister instructs local authorities clearly that this provision is to expedite matters and not hold them up, he could have a hassle going on between a tenant, the contractor and a local authority about the possible cost of repairs. A contractor may suggest that a chimney should be knocked down while local authority engineers may disagree.

Mr. Barrett

They can appeal to the Minister.

Mr. O'Toole

As the Minister is aware, such an appeal is a long drawn out affair. Appealing to a Department on any issue takes months, even years, if one goes on the track record. I hope the Minister will expedite things in his Department in this regard. Were I a tenant who disagreed with a local authority on the level of repairs to be carried out I could not envisage myself appealing to the Minister and hope to get a reply within a matter of months. That reply may arrive within six or nine months. Such an appeal is a slow process. The idea is a good one but I wonder if it will expedite existing procedures.

It is unfortunate that the low rise mortgage scheme was not availed of to the extent it might have been. When introduced it provided a facility for those vacating local authority houses and purchasing private houses. Initially, this provision made sense but private housing has become so expensive that the low rise mortgage scheme should be made available to certain categories of people apart from those vacating local authority houses. The SDA loan stands at £9,000 with an income limit of £4,000, which is nothing short of ludicrous in this day and age. I accept that many people are availing of that scheme but I am sure the Minister is aware that in many cases the amount of the loan only goes half-way towards providing the type of house some purchasers have in mind. The social problems resulting from the pressures brought about by this massive commitment on the part of a young newly married couple are serious for the couple, their family and the country.

The Minister ought to apply something in the form of the low-rise mortgage scheme to all who become eligible for SDA loans. A person earning £76 per week is not in a position to face the commitment of a mortgage which could be twice the amount applicable to a mortgage of £9,000. I was disappointed that the Minister did not seek to extend the provisions of that scheme to all applicants eligible for SDA loans. I was also disappointed that the Minister omitted to make any mention of conservation of energy in the Bill. We are all aware that VAT applies to insulation materials here and that in other countries, countries which are suffering a similar fate to us on the question of energy, grants are being given towards conservation of energy in the form of incentives to insulate homes. People are being penalised for providing insulation in their own homes. While travelling to this House yesterday I heard a statement on the radio to the effect that a grant was now available for the provision of a solid fuel cooker in homes. That individual then made the point that those with a fireplace in their homes would not qualify for the grant.

Mr. Barrett

I did not hear that programme.

Mr. O'Toole

It was not a news item; it was a feature. The point was made that there is a reconstruction grant of £600 available for the provision of a solid fuel cooker and chimney.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Quinn and other speakers tried to create an impression of a state of conflict and tension between the CIF and myself, which is not true. The construction industry know and appreciate that they were rescued from acute depression by the policies of this Government. Employment and output in the industry are higher than at any other time in the seventies. Output in 1978 was an all-time record and present indications are that output in this year will be well above the average for the national economy generally.

There has been a regular sequence of consultations between the CIF and myself, the Minister of State and my Department about matters of mutual concern, the most recent of which actually took place earlier this month when a general review of the output of this industry in 1978 and the outlook for 1979 took place. It is natural that house builders should resist any controls over the price of their products but their opposition to house price control must be considered in relation to the objective that house purchasers should get reasonable value for their investment. It seems that we all agree on this. This is the purpose underlying section 18 of the Bill. However, I feel that builders may have a legitimate grievance about the lack of any form of appeal or any machinery for appeal against the refusal to grant a CRV. As I said this morning, I intend to deal with this on Committee Stage by way of amendment.

Deputy Tully criticised the amount of capital made available this year for SDA loans. I suggest that he compare the £44½ million provided this year under the public capital programme with the £17.66 million provided under the 1977 budget, when he was the Minister responsible for the scheme. The number of loans approved under the scheme has been increasing rapidly as a result of the two increases given in the maximum loan and the income limit just two years ago. I would remind the Deputy also that between 1973 and 1977, when he was Minister, no increase was given in either the loan or the income limit.

In 1977 5,052 SDA loans totalling £25.8 million were approved. Last year the totals were 7,515 loans and to the tune of £50.2 million. In the first three months of this year 2,163 loans totalling £16.9 million were approved. This on an annual basis is equivalent to 8,652 loans totalling £67.6 million.

Deputy Tully questioned whether or not local authority houses would be eligible for house improvement grants, which were formerly known as reconstruction grants and still are by most people. Any local authority tenant or tenant purchaser is entitled to a grant as any private dweller is. Jobs such as the installation of a fireplace and chimney in a house without those facilities are covered under the scheme. I intend to issue a circular to local authorities dealing in a comprehensive manner with the subject of repairs and improvements to their houses and will deal specifically with the financing of the work which will be involved in the very near future.

Deputy Tully had some comments to make about section 16 of the Bill which gives local authorities a discretion whether or not to get advice from the local medical officer when deciding the order of priority for lettings of local authority houses. This discretion was requested by a number of our local authorities who were influenced by the fact that the medical officer of health is not an officer of the local authority concerned and is not answerable to and is not subject to control by the particular local authority. The decision as to whether or not the medical officer in question should be involved in lettings will be made by each local authority.

Deputy Tully criticised the levels of grant assistance available for the provision of new houses and the improvement of existing houses. He was the Minister responsible when the Coalition Government in 1976 severely curtailed eligibility for new house grants by relating it to the ludicrously low income limits then applying in the case of supplementary local authority grants. This was done at a time when house building costs were rising rapidly. A year later the Deputy introduced valuation limits in order to reduce the number of people qualifying for the hopelessly inadequate reconstruction grants at that time. I would like to point out that this year's Estimate for my Department provides £30 million for housing grants. When this is compared with the £4½ million allocated by the National Coalition in their 1977 budget it is very difficult to accept that Deputy Tully was serious when he criticised Fianna Fáil in this particular area.

He also asked about the staffing position in the section of my Department dealing with CRV applications. I would like to assure him that since taking office I have kept a close eye on the position and have increased the staff level considerably as it was necessary to do so. This is borne out by our record in regard to the time taken to issue decisions. The staffing implications of the measures incorporated in this Bill will be attended to whenever they arise.

Deputy Fitzpatrick alleged that the low rise mortgage scheme is not being availed of to any extent. This is quite untrue. Payments under the scheme totalled £5.47 million in 1978. A further £1.36 million was paid in the first quarter of this year and at 31 March 1979 the total applications on hands amounted to £8.41 million. It took some time for this scheme to get off the ground but in the last two years it has really taken off and I am glad.

Deputy Quinn indicated that his party proposed to move an amendment on Committee Stage to the effect that regulations made by the Minister may be amended by the Dáil. I am advised legally that it would not be possible to give effect to such an amendment. However, I should make it clear that if this House considers that specific provisions of regulations made under this Bill should be amended I will be prepared to give sympathetic consideration to the making of revised regulations providing for the amendment of the existing regulations along the lines suggested.

The question of delays in issuing CRVs was referred to by more than one speaker. It was said that the average was 21 days, but since I stated that in this House I am now aware that in 1978 during which 2,400 decisions were issued the average time was only 15 days. In May 1979 the average time was only 14 days. It is important to distinguish between decisions and certificates since in some cases a number of negative decisions may have issued prior to the CRV which would have been granted because the price had been reduced. In these circumstances it can be misleading in terms of the service provided by the Department for a builder to say it took him four months to get a CRV. That is not a just criticism in these circumstances. Of course there are a small number of applications which for one reason or another it is not possible to process within the 21-day limit which was originally envisaged when CRVs were introduced but these are very much the exception and a large number of cases are decided within a week.

The CRV system was designed specifically to impose as little extra paperwork as possible on builders and to permit quick decisions. All possible assistance is given to builders in making applications and requests from the CIF for improvements to the relevant memoranda have been acceded to.

As I said at the outset, the Committee Stage will give an opportunity to be more specific with regard to certain points made. This is a Bill to validate the actions taken since 1970, such as changes in grants, the levels of grants and loans and many other matters that needed to be validated. It is retrospective in the sense that it is validating everything that took place during the Fianna Fáil Government at the beginning of the decade, during the term of office of the National Coalition Government and in the past two years. It was time to do this as well as dealing with other matters such as tightening up the situation with regard to CRVs and so on. For the information of the Deputies, I wish to tell them that amendments are stencilled now and they will be circulated as soon as Committee Stage is ordered.

I thank the Deputies for their interest and their contributions but I take exception to part of what Deputy Keating said. Despite the fact that the matter he referred to was debated fully last night and his accusations answered, he was permitted to go back over the whole scene again today and to make the same accusations. He even named an individual of this House and a company. I will make no further comment other than saying that what I said on 15 May, as explained last night, was true. It is still true and I have no intention of changing that to any kind of incorrect statement or answer just to satisfy Deputy Keating.

Question put and agreed to.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 27 Jun 1979

Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1979: Second Stage (Resumed).

Acting Chairman

Acting Chairman

Acting Chairman

Acting Chairman

Acting Chairman

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 27 Jun 1979