I am grateful for this opportunity to highlight injustice in the administration of housing grants. Many people have been deprived of grants to which they are legitimately entitled. This situation arose due to the withdrawal of reconstruction grants after a certain date. This brought about a flood of applications which led to grave administrative problems in that section of the Department. People are still awaiting grants to which they are entitled. They are receiving the reply from the Department that there is no record of their applications, despite the fact that they made legitimate applications and received acknowledgements from the Department. The Department is in turmoil, and this fact has been brought out at Question Time and during other debates. The Minister must accept that a great effort is needed to straighten out the affairs of his Department in relation to the payment of grants and the necessary inspections.
In order to qualify for a grant, work had to be completed by 30 June 1981, but in many cases the work has not yet been inspected and as a result grants have not been paid. This unsatisfactory position demands drastic action.
In general these grants were applied for by working-class people with small homes who wished to provide the necessary facilities or carry out improvements such as the replacement of windows, the building of chimneys or the replacement of a roof. Many people have not an inside toilet and in some rural areas there are houses which have not even an outside toilet or a bathroom. The grants were also available for the extension of kitchens or the addition of an extra bedroom in the case of large families. These grants were essential to most people who availed of them. In some cases people improved their houses by putting in aluminium windows and building sun porches, but generally the grants were sought for improvements which were absolutely necessary and the people who undertook these works could not have done so unless grants were available.
Tenants of local authority houses had improvements carried out at their own expense with the aid of grants and some, later on, purchased these houses. Grants were applied for to improve the facilities available. These were ordinary people seeking to upgrade their living standards — in most cases these were substandard — and I was surprised that these grants were withdrawn. House improvement grants go back to 1919. It was recognised, even then, that people required help to improve their living standards. These grants continued interruptedly until withdrawn on 21 January 1980. This was a bad decision of the Minister's Government and I, certainly, would not be proud if my party in Government had taken that decision. This withdrawal created the problems experienced by people who have applied for grants ever since. People were notified that they had to apply before 21 January 1980 to receive the grant. Later on, they were notified that if the work was not completed and the Department notified to that effect before 30 June 1981, the grant would not be made available to them.
The crunch of the matter is that the Department accepted applications from these people in an open-ended situation, with no time limit on completion of the work being involved. Many of these people had already applied before notification of withdrawal of grants. They were lulled into a false sense of security that a grant would be available to them when the work was completed. This is a very important factor. Applicants were notified through the media of the time limit. The Minister, when questioned about applicants not being aware of the closing date said that this date was extended twice, the final date being 30 June 1981, that this fact was given considerable publicity in March 1981 and again in June 1981, that large notices were published in all five Sunday newspapers and these facts figured prominently on television and in the news bulletins. Does the Minister consider that adequate notice to people who have applied for grants with no strings attached? Does he believe that everyone reads the Sunday newspapers or, even if people do read them, that they read the advertisements?
If a survey were carried out, it would be found that quite a few people do not read Sunday newspapers and never read advertisements in any newspapers. Many do not listen to news bulletins and follow only sport on television or in the papers. The Department were obliged to inform, by registered post, every applicant who had been accepted that he must notify the Department by 30 June 1981 to qualify for a grant. The people involved were those in the lower income classes who do not pay too much attention to newspapers. These people could not have afforded, without a grant, to carry out reconstruction. They have been put in very dire financial straits by having to borrow the shortfall, on which they are now paying very high interest rates, in addition to the capital.
If the people deprived of these grants came together and challenged the matter in the courts, I do not believe that any judge would give a decision against them. A large number of people have not received the grants and they should take a test case to the courts and challenge this unjust decision. I appeal to the Minister to reconsider this matter. A mistaken decision by the Government has caused this situation and the Minister is directly responsible for depriving these unfortunate people of the grants to which they are entitled. Does the Minister believe that people who are due grants of from £600 to £1,000 would not have applied before 30 June 1981 had they known that it was necessary to do so to receive these grants? I know many of these in Kilkenny city, without having to go outside it, and of a few cases where the work was inspected by a Government inspector but the grant has not yet been paid. That type of case can be contested. The Minister cannot use the fact that he notified these people by newspaper advertisements and television to refuse to pay the grants. I ask the Minister to give serious thought to this and make these grants available.
