I deeply regret that because of the Government's action in the House today in the motion which restricts the time for debate of items such as the motion now before the House, the Courts Bill, 1981, the Merchant Shipping Bill, 1981, the Rent Restrictions Bill, 1981, and the Housing (Private Rented Dwellings) Bill, 1981, we will not have adequate time to debate this important motion. Neither will we have time properly to consider the other Bills I have mentioned. It is to be deeply regretted from a democratic point of view. The order to which the motion refers is as follows:
The Minister for the Environment in exercise of the powers conferred on him by section 13 of the Housing Act, 1969 (No. 16 of 1969) hereby makes the following Order, the draft of which has been approved by a resolution passed by each House of the Oireachtas:—
1. This Order may be cited as the Housing Act, 1969 (Continuance) Order, 1981.
2. The Housing Act, 1969 (other than section 11 and subsections (1) and (2) of section 13) shall continue in force until 31st December, 1984.
It would be helpful to the House if I referred to exactly what is in the Housing Act, 1969, and reminded the House of its sections. In the Title, the Act is referred to as follows:
An Act to make provision to control the demolition or use otherwise than for human habitation of certain houses.
Initially we have the interpretation section. Section 2 refers to general obligations for obtaining permission. Section 3 refers to applications for permission. Section 4 deals with permission for demolition or use otherwise than for human habitation of habitable houses. Section 5 provides that a housing authority may require a house to be made fit for human habitation. Section 6 provides for the enforcement of a reinstatement notice. Section 7 refers to the recovery of instalments mentioned in section 4(3) and expenses incurred by a housing authority under section 6(1).
Section 8 provides that appeals relating to reinstatement notices and demands for expenses may be made under section 72 of the Act of 1966. Section 9 refers to the non-application of the Act in certain cases. Section 10 deals with provisions applicable where permission is required under this Act to and under the Act of 1963. Section 11 deals with the amendment of section 66 of the Act of 1966. Section 12 is the transitional section and section 13 concerns the short title, construction, collective citation and duration.
All of these sections in the original Act were intended to preserve the stock of housing. In discussing this motion one must ask what action have the Government taken to preserve and increase our housing stock. If we look at the motion in narrow terms, it is a continuance of the existing situation with a recognition by the Minister of the need to review the situation some time between now and 1984. If the Minister is seriously considering a review of this legislation, why does he need the period between now and 1984 to do so? My concern is that he may be putting it on the long finger. If he were serious, he would have confined himself to a 12-month period. The Minister referred to pressure of other legislation and other items in the Department. If he were sincere he would have given himself 12 months continuance. Exactly what are the Minister's proposals and what are the trends of thought in his review?
Before going on to the general question of the maintenance of the housing stock and additions to it, and the Government's policy in that area, I would ask the Minister to direct his attention to section 5 of the Act we are being asked to continue in operation. Section 5 gives to the housing authority the power to require a house to be made fit for human habitation. From my experience I found that one of the great defects of the Housing Act, 1969, was that, while property owners were waiting for a decision to be made by the local authority or by the Minister on appeal, they quite consciously allowed the condition of their property to deteriorate to such an extent that the local authority or the Minister had little option but to grant permission for a change of use.
If they did not the house was allowed to deteriorate to the stage where it could no longer be used for human habitation. It was easier in that case for the local authority to grant permission for a change of use rather than to try and impose section 5 which required the house to be returned to a state fit for human habitation. In my experience in the Department a number of these cases came before me. How does the Minister intend to tackle the problem of property owners who quite consciously and irresponsibly permit and assist in the deterioriation of their property while awaiting permission for a change of use from a habitable residence to an office block, a shop, or whatever.
The whole operation of this Act needs to be looked at. I welcome the Minister's statement that he intends to look at it, but I question his sincerity about his review of the Act when he says that he will take until 1984 to look at it. The Minister for the Environment is not really sincere about tackling the problem if he is asking for a continuance order up to 1984.
As I said, the Act refers to the maintenance of the housing stock. That is really the kernel of the Act. I question the Government's sincerity about improving the housing stock. I want to remind the House that, when the previous National Coalition were in office, with the exception of a decision made within a month of taking office to increase the limits of the local authority housing loans and the income limits, from March-April of 1973 until they were thrown out of office, chased out by the Irish people in June 1977, they did not increase the income limits or the loan limit of the SDA loans.
We have a number of schemes for encouraging house purchase. The only scheme run by the State is the SDA loans scheme. We depend on the building societies, the insurance companies, the banks and other lending agencies for the remainder of the loans. Between 1973 and 1977 the National Coalition Government showed a total contempt for the State's involvement in the SDA loans scheme. Since they took office this time through the vagaries of PR, and the kindness of socialist, question mark, inverted commas, Deputies, once again they have shown their contempt for the only agency in the State which is geared to the provision of loans for house purchase. They came into power on 30 June last. From 23 July we had three budgets in a week — we had the budget on Tuesday when we saw the increase in VAT, from 10 per cent up to 15 per cent on most items; we had all of the other savage increases announced on that Tuesday; on the Wednesday we had the increases in electricity, CIE, postal and other charges announced and on the Thursday here at about 12 noon in slipped the Minister for the Environment, Deputy P. Barry and with a stroke of the pen he altered the regulations for the SDA loans scheme.
I would remind the House of exactly what we had done in power from 1977 to 1981. When we assumed office there was the ludicrous level of income eligibility of £2,350, and £4,500 was the size of the loan. Over the years we increased those figures, the last increase constituting one section of the housing package I announced in April last, which increased the loan to £14,000 and the income limit to £7,000. Part of that package also were the subsidies and so on, to which I will revert later. At that stage we had demand for the SDA loans scheme running at a record level. What happened? With the usual narrow-minded, backward looking administration and decisions that typify this Fine Gael-Labour Coalition, they removed from eligibility 22 per cent of potential borrowers. They excluded loans for single people. We all know — and the figure of 22 per cent proves it — there is a tradition of single people, men and women, buying homes. Within three weeks of coming into power this Government removed such applicants from eligibility for SDA loans.
Tomorrow we will be asked to consider a Housing Finance Agency Bill which purports to make extra finance available from the private sector for the purpose of providing loans for house purchase. Surely if this administration were serious about the provision of money for house purchase, rather than setting up another layer of bureaucracy with all the expense that that entails, they would remove the conditions that have debarred 22 per cent of potential house buyers from availability to the SDA loans scheme. They already have a national scheme, the local authority house purchase scheme. We do not need another layer of bureaucracy; rather they should just provide the finance through the SDA loans scheme.
On top of that third budget in July last, as I have described it, the Minister for the Environment removed the availability of the mortgage subsidy from single people, again hitting this 22 per cent, admitted by the Government, and I use the Minister's own figure of 22 per cent.
We are told that this agency which we are to discuss tomorrow and Thursday under this guillotine motion — and we were told by the Minister of State earlier when moving the guillotine motion — is urgently required to meet a desperate social need and is a measure which will enable the Government to establish an agency which will ultimately channel private sector funds into housing. There is a serious shortage of funding for housing in this country at present. That is the responsibility of the Government and let them tackle it. It is said that this measure is designed to give the necessary injection of resources to alleviate the problem. The Bill we will be discussing tomorrow will be an enabling one.
If the Government are concerned about the construction industry on the housing side let them make adequate funds available and not be cutting back in the way they have been, in the discriminatory removal of single people from the availability of SDA loans and mortgage subsidies. We discussed this last week and the Government, with their pet Independents, great Socialists, voted against our Private Members' motion to restore the availability of this subsidy and loan to single people. Just in case the Minister of State might feel that this has to do with single people only, might I say that the SDA loans scheme is literally on its knees. To all intents and purposes it has come to a halt in all of the local authorities around the country because of the actions of this administration. If the Minister of State is serious about maintaining and improving the housing stock, if he is serious about the provision of funds for loans, let him provide the money now, let him give this injection of funds about which the Minister of State spoke earlier to maintain and increase the housing stock which is what this Housing Act of 1969 we are discussing here is all about.
I would ask the Minister now to consider the joint income situation of applicants. Again the rules were changed in July last. There is now in operation a regulation which was defined here by the Minister of State's predecessor, the present Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, in response to questions in this House, when he said that the joint incomes were taken together unless the wife was in a temporary job, but he would not give a definition of "temporary". I can tell the House and the Minister of State that the SDA loans scheme is no longer operable in most local authorities. Local authorities are not operating the scheme because where will one find a joint income of husband and wife under £7,000? The situation obtaining in regard to a man about to be married is that his income and that of his fiancee's are taken together. There are very few couples in permanent jobs whose joint income would be under £7,000.
We do not need motions of this type, or Bills such as the Housing Finance Agency one, and the great beating of breast by the Minister of State saying that there is a serious shortage of funding in housing in the country at present and that this measure is designed to give the necessary injection of resources to alleviate the problem. What we need is reality and some honesty from this administration. What is needed is money, not Bills setting up new bureaucracies.
If the Government were serious about the construction industry and the maintenance of and addition to the housing stock, one would have to look at their record with regard to the building societies. In April or May this year we had to have discussions with the building societies regarding the inflow of funds because they play a major role in the provision of housing finance and are expected this year to provide about £300 million. They had a difficulty because of competition from the banks and other agencies and their inflow of funds could have been damaged unless there were an increase in their deposit rate. Conscious of the role of the building societies and the need for funds and recognising at the same time the undue hardship which would be created for mortgage holders without some form of subsidisation, we in Fianna Fáil decided to allow the building societies to increase their deposit rate but to subsidise mortgage holders in their repayments. In his infamous speech on the July budget the Minister for the Environment announced the removal of that mortgage subsidy.
When we left office on 30 June mortgage holders, because of our subsidisation, were being asked to pay an interest rate of 13.15 per cent; today the mortgage interest rate is 16.25 per cent because of the removal of the subsidy by this administration. This is the Government who talk about the need to tackle inflation and the cost of living generally and who purport to care for people. They also purport to be concerned about maintaining and increasing the housing stock.
What has been the role of this Government with regard to encouraging the insurance companies and the banks to involve themselves in the provision of funds for the maintenance and increase of the housing stock? All we have had so far is waffle and I look forward to hearing the Minister telling us tomorrow how much money he is getting from the insurance companies and pension funds and how much he will inject into the building industry.
A very important sector of the housing industry affected by this order is the area of rented accommodation. Because of the guillotine motion passed earlier today we will not have the opportunity of discussing on Committee Stage the Housing (Private Rented Dwellings) Bill, 1981 and I very much regret this because Deputy Connolly and I have put down some major amendments on behalf of our party in an effort to improve the Bill and to provide guarantees of security and equity to tenants and landlords. The Bill, which will be going to the Supreme Court, will not have the benefit of a full and thorough investigation in this House on Committee and Report Stages. The Supreme Court will be asked to decide on a Bill passed after a Second Stage debate, the other Stages being passed by the Members of Fine Gael and Labour and their pet Independents going through the lobbies.
I wish to put on record exactly what is included in the amendments we envisaged.