Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 2 Dec 1980

Vol. 325 No. 1

Adjournment Debate. - County Dublin Housing.

Mr. B. Desmond

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for having given me permission on the Adjournment to bring to the attention of the House and the Minister the fact that about 7,500 families are on the housing waiting lists of the Dublin local authorities. If we assume that the average size of such families is three people the number actually concerned is 20,000 people. They have completed housing application forms, have been visited by health inspector, have submitted data related to their income levels, have been visited by housing officers and are deemed to be in need of housing. They are living in overcrowded conditions, in private accommodation where they pay very high rents or in accommodation which is on the verge of being classified as unfit for human use.

There are many married couples, quite a large number of single parent families and a large number of single and elderly people in the Dublin area, who are unable to purchase out of their own resources private accommodation or unable to live with human dignity in rented accommodation. In the south Dublin area, in Dun Laoghaire and Ballybrack, there are now 600 such people on the housing list. If any young married couple, an elderly person or a one-parent family want to rent one room 12 feet by 10 feet in that area the average rent is £20 to £25 a week. In many instances those people have to share toilet facilities, bathroom and shower facilities, if they are provided, and a clothes line. It is a disgraceful commentary on our social attitudes that the vast majority of people, including politicians in this House, who have houses, are not concerned about those who have no homes to live in. That has to be shouted from the rooftops of Leinster House every day. The situation is getting critical.

I made an allegation in my question that in some local authority areas — I refer to Dun Laoghaire Corporation in particular — if a person's annual income exceeds £5,500, if a couple are earning more than £106 a week, they are refused registration and approval as housing applicants. The Minister says that Dun Laoghaire Corporation and Dublin County Council say they have not refused to consider applicants for local authority housing purely on the grounds that their income exceeds £5,500 per annum.

I am not referring to Dublin County Council. I am chairman of that council and we do not operate any income limit. I know of 13 cases in Dun Laoghaire borough where that local authority have said to people in the last year: "You are earning more than £106 a week. We accept that you are living in unfit housing conditions. If your wages are £110 or £120 a week you will not be registered as a housing applicant." I ask the Minister to again contact Dun Laoghaire Corporation and inquire if the information he has received is correct because the information I have, including correspondence from that local authority to housing applicants, does not bear out what the Minister says. The matter should be clarified. I am satisfied with the good intentions of the Minister that no local authority in the country should fix a general arbitrary figure of £5,500, which is the loan limit for housing, and say that people above that figure must provide their own houses.

There are no new houses available in the area I represent for less than £30,000 to £35,000. If the Minister can show me a new house in the Dun Laoghaire borough at around £20,000 to £25,000 I can produce him a first-time buyer. The same applies in the county council area, where the cost of housing is very high. It is even higher than Galway city. The statistics do not give the breakdown; they only give it generally for county Dublin. The cost of private purchase accommodation and of rented accommodation is exceptionally high in south county Dublin. The situation has changed very considerably. We do not have to go any further in relation to the points made in my question than the recent report issued by the National Economic and Social Council, which was presumably available to the Minister's Department towards the end of September. It was printed in September and was not presented to the House until a fortnight ago. In other words, the Government sat on the report. There are a number of salient points in this report which I should like to emphasise.

Paragraph 5.25 on page 50 supplies the following information:

There are at present about 33,000 families on the waiting list for local authority housing around the country. This is made up of 26,000 approved and 7,000 unapproved. The approved alone represent more than four families waiting for each local authority house completed in 1979.

That is an indictment of our economic and social system. The paragraph continues:

The numbers of applicants have been relatively static in recent years (Table 32). Meanwhile the total number of local authority house completions has been declining (see Table 32) and the difficulties of private house purchases have been increasing. There is little evidence of a decline in the housing needs of families who live in unfit or in overcrowded dwellings and of categories such as the aged and the disabled. The Council, therefore, considers that the need for local authority dwellings will not decline in the immediate future.

Is that not a clear indictment of the collapse, for all practical purposes, of any policy on the part of the Government to provide money for local authority housing? Again, paragraph 5.20 on page 48 of the report reads:

The 1980 capital allocation of £183 million to housing will, if fully taken up, represent an increase of 8.3% in money terms over 1979. The major part of this increase is to provide for grants and loans for house purchase and for house improvements. The allocation for new local authority housing (excluding the allocation for the low-rise mortgage scheme) is £92.5 million and represents an increase in money terms of 3.2% over 1979. Given the expected rate of inflation in costs the 1980 allocation represents a reduction in resources for local authority house building.

In the absence of any further resources this will probably be reflected in a reduction in the rate of completions over the forthcoming six to twelve months.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy will appreciate that these are very long quotations.

Mr. B. Desmond

I only make the point that even if a couple are able to get a loan of £12,000 and if they get also the £1,000 grant for first-time purchasers and if they had saved £3,000, they would still need £10,000 to purchase a £26,000 house. Another point is that under the national understanding the £5,500 income limit is obsolete. A saving of £3,000 would probably represent half the total income of a couple for the year. Therefore, it has become impossible for many people to acquire homes of their own. In this situation a close watch should be kept on local authorities in order to ensure that where families are in need of housing there is no pussy-footing, nor any question of using ministerial guidelines which can be pulled out now and again and used against housing applicants. The financing of local authority housing programmes should be assisted.

It is time that the Government tried to clear the role of the supportive agencies in this area. So far the Government have failed totally to face up to the problems presented by the obvious independent and obdurate action on the part of the building societies, by the lack of contribution from insurance companies and from the associated banks and by the obvious collapse of the Public Capital Programme in relation to money being provided in particular for house purchase and home improvement loans. In relation to the references I have made to Dún Laoghaire and to South County Dublin, I urge the Minister to make moneys available, particularly to Dublin County Council for house purchase loans. At our offices in Parnell Square there are 350 approved applications which are worth about £4 million in terms of local authority housing applicants for the £12,000 loans. The families concerned have been waiting from six to eight months but there is no money coming from the Department of the Environment to Dublin County Council and, consequently, these people are not being enabled to take up their house purchase loans. Everything has been approved. The cheques are there but they cannot be signed.

Very many of the families concerned are paying exorbitant interest rates on the bridging finance that they have had to obtain. I wish to say to them that their frustration and their electoral reaction should not be directed in any way against Dublin County Council but should be directed at the Government in so far as their contribution to the council, particularly in respect of house purchase loans, has collapsed. Despite the assurances given in the lead up to the national understanding that there would be a review of the situation under the Public Capital Programme, no such review has taken place.

As chairman of Dublin County Council, I have no intention of bearing the burden of the incompetence of the Government in this matter. That is why I am impressing on the Minister the necessity for making available without any further delay the moneys that have been approved. I am asking the Minister to double-check the situation in relation to Dún Laoghaire Corporation in so far as the income limit is concerned in order to ensure that there is no messing around in the future. I urge him to ensure also that Dublin County Council be given the money they need for house purchase loans.

I thank the Chair for his tolerance. I appreciate that I went somewhat outside the ambit of the debate but there was some confusion today with the Minister of State, Deputy Connolly. I might add that that confusion was as much on our part as on his. The Minister answered a number of questions together though some of them had been put down for written reply. I hope that I have clarified now what I intended to ask by way of supplementary question today and I thank the Minister of State for coming in this evening.

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment (Mr. Fahey)

As Deputy Desmond has said, we have strayed very far from the original question. We have had a very broad debate covering all aspects of housing, building societies and the role they play. I have no wish to enter into such a debate at this stage as there will be plenty of opportunities to do so later. I am not criticising Deputy Desmond for what he has said. I have noted his comments and, in answer to him, I wish to say that the Government are fully committed to rehousing people who need to be rehoused by the local authorities.

I was glad to hear the Deputy say he has accepted that the income limit is not a criterion for local authorities with regard to rehousing. This appeared to be the implication in the question he put down.

Mr. B. Desmond

I have accepted the assurance of the Minister of State but I have not accepted what the corporation are doing.

Mr. Fahey

At this stage I should like to quote the question and the reply given to the Deputy. There was confusion about Question No. 36. In fairness to my colleague, Deputy Connolly, Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, I should like to point out that Question No. 36 was withdrawn at approximately 2.30 p.m. and I understand the reply was given to the Deputy by the General Office. As a result of the question being withdrawn some confusion arose. There was a lot of crossfire about this matter but I wish to restate that although it was put down originally for oral answer it was subsequently withdrawn for written answer at 2.30 p.m. Question No. 36 reads as follows:

To ask the Minister for the Environment if he is aware that grave and serious hardship is being imposed on many young couples, single parent families and single and elderly persons in the Dún Laoghaire and south county Dublin area who are completely unable to provide either private purchase accommodation or private rented accommodation from their own financial resources because of the extremely high cost of new houses and rented accommodation in this area; and if he will accordingly instruct the local authorities that their refusal to accept housing applications from applicants in these areas where their income exceeds £5,500 per annum should be rescinded.

The reply to the question was as follows:

In accordance with section 60 of the Housing Act, 1966, all local authority dwellings must be let in accordance with statutory schemes of letting priorities adopted by the local authority concerned and approved by me. The approved letting priorities schemes of Dún Laoghaire Corporation and Dublin County Council do not contain any clauses which would exclude from consideration applicants of any particular level of income. No income limit has been specified by my Department for eligibility for rehousing by a local authority.

I understand from queries which I have had made of Dún Laoghaire Corporation and of Dublin County Council that they have not refused to consider applications for local authority housing from applicants purely on the grounds that the applicant's income exceeds £5,500 per annum. Accordingly the question of my issuing an instruction to these two housing authorities on the lines suggested by the Deputy does not arise.

I should like to expand on that a little and to stress again that there is no statutory income limit because the primary consideration is comparative urgency of need. In preparing their building programme under section 55 of the Housing Act, 1966, a housing authority is required by sub-section 3 (c) of that section to have regard to the objective of providing adequate and suitable housing accommodation for persons, including elderly or disabled persons, who in the opinion of the authority are in need of and are unable to provide such accommodation from their own resources.

Under the Housing Act, 1966, each housing authority formulates its own scheme of letting priorities for its area, subject to the following primary objectives set out in section 60 of that Act: (a) the repair, closure or demolition of unfit houses; (b) the elimination of overcrowding; (c) the provision of adequate and suitable housing accommodation for persons, including elderly or disabled persons, who in the opinion of the housing authority are in need of and unable to provide such accommodation from their own resources. The Minister's approval is required for each scheme of letting priorities or for an amendment of a scheme. This is necessary to ensure uniformity in compliance with the primary objectives referred to while leaving room for local discretion. The making or amendment of a letting priority scheme is a reserved function.

This is a matter in which I would be very slow to intervene. Nevertheless, we are always anxious to ensure that the letting priorities of the local authorities are fair and reasonably applied. With regard to the situation in Dun Laoghaire, the corporation have stated that their scheme of letting priorities does not include any clause that would exclude persons of a particular income level. Following the issue of circular H37/78 of 31 August 1978 which exhorted local authorities to consider critically applications for houses from persons whose circumstances, including those of earning members of the household are such that they might reasonably be expected to house themselves with the aid of the new grants and loan limits in cases where an applicant's income was in excess of the maximum for an SDA loan — £5,500 — it was indicated to such applicants that they should be in a position to provide accommodation from their own resources.

Mr. B. Desmond

That confirms what I have been saying.

Mr. Fahey

However, if such an applicant satisfied the corporation that it was not possible to provide his own housing his case was processed in the normal way. In the past three years the number of cases where the corporation indicated that applicants appeared to be in a position to provide accommodation from their own resources was only 13 and four of these were subsequently processed while some of the remaining nine are still under review.

Mr. B. Desmond

Will the Minister not accept that some of the nine might be only £10 over the figure—

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister of State should be allowed to continue without interruption.

Mr. Fahey

We would like people to be encouraged in every way to provide their own housing but if the local authority concerned is satisfied that it is not possible for them to do so they will process their applications in the normal way——

Mr. B. Desmond

A person in Dún Laoghaire who earns £110 per week cannot provide his own house.

Mr. Fahey

The Deputy referred to certain areas. Perhaps the sites were more expensive or difficult to obtain. The local authority will take all of this into account. There is flexibility in such a situation. This is why we are not laying down hard and fast guidelines with regard to income. We do not expect local authorities to debar anybody who is otherwise qualified for inclusion on the list. We are conscious of the need to rehouse people and we continually exhort the local authorities to be as lenient as possible in the processing of applications. The criterion is the need of the applicants.

The Dáil adjourned at 9 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 3 December 1980.