I am standing in for my colleague, Deputy John Wilson. Last week, I tabled a question to the Minister regarding the delay in house inspections in the Cavan-Monaghan constituency. However, I wish to raise the subject again because, over the last 12 months, there has been a considerable delay in the inspection of new houses. It is not uncommon for Deputies to contact the Department in writing or by telephone requesting an inspection which would result in a grant payment for people badly in need of it. The usual reply from the Department is that the application is being processed and will be sent on to the inspector.
In many cases, four or five months elapse and nothing further is done. It is very hard to explain to constituents that you had been in touch with the Department who said that they were sending a reminder to the inspector and it is very annoying not to get any decision. It must also be very annoying for the staff in O'Connell Bridge House to have continual queries directed at them in relation to the same people. The Minister said that there was a shortage of staff and that one of the housing inspectors was ill but the person building his or her own house does not understand these delays. Normally, those building their own houses are waiting for the grant to pay builders' providers or contractors but they are also waiting for that grant to qualify for a loan subsidy which would be a sum of £1,000 in the first year.
I know that many people have problems in securing sites and finance to build new houses. At local authority level, we often deal with requests to increase the loans substantially. However, to take a realistic view, the loan is probably as much as the person building the house will be able to pay in the years ahead. When people ask for my advice in regard to loans I tell them that they should be very wary of over-extending themselves. Those who build houses are usually young married couples who have added expense in regard to children and in furnishing their homes.
Most of the people who have been building over the years lived in other accommodation and perhaps did not qualify for grants. I have stated continuously that we should ease the burden in every way possible by providing serviced sites. I have discovered from inquiries that many local authorities charge a high price for their serviced sites. In fact, one could say that the figure is fixed with a view to making a profit. The case made is that the local authority have to spend a lot of money providing services such as water, sewerage and ESB. It has always been my belief that more should be done in regard to the provision of serviced sites to make it easier for people to buy their own home. I understand that the Exchequer pays in the region of £100 million in rent subsidies to local authorities. Just 12 months ago local authorities would have had to obtain £20 per week in rent for the average council house but the average rent was £4 per week. That is the reason for the massive subsidy.
Huge sums of money have been spent on capital works in recent years such as the provision of schools, hospitals and so on but very little has been made available to ease the burden of the person anxious to buy his or her own house, the individual who would be seeking a loan to buy a house costing from £16,000 upwards. I can recall that when I first became a Member the average price of a house was £4,000 but the assistance given then has not increased very much. A lot of the employment in the construction industry is provided by builders erecting houses for people qualified to obtain the £1,000 grant. In the case of those people every penny counts.
I hear many complaints at local clinics about the delay in getting housing inspectors to call to view houses. Up to a few years ago only six weeks elapsed between the time the file was sent to the housing inspector and its return to the applicant. However, in the last two years it has taken up to five months to deal with such applications. In recent weeks a woman whose husband died since he applied for a grant told me that the file was sent to the housing inspector last March. Due to the delay in dealing with applications staff should be moved around to areas where there is a big backlog. Cavan and Monaghan have not received the same attention as other counties in regard to house inspections. We should consider redeploying staff. We can no longer afford to have officials placed in one area and not be in a position to cover other districts. As a result of the backlog in regard to house inspections technicians or other qualified people should be brought in to help out.
Some Department inspectors appear to have a bee in their bonnet in regard to applications to convert garages to living quarters. I have heard of people being turned down because the inspector felt that such work would be in excess of the limits applicable to new house grants. The Minister should insist on his inspectors being lenient in this regard. There should not be a rigid interpretation of the regulations. In many cases the people building houses are not aware of the floor area because the plans are drawn up by architects. It is wrong to deprive such people of house grants. I am aware of two cases where people have had to revise a plan for their houses to ensure that there would not be access from the garage to the house in order to comply with the regulations. Department officials should be lenient in such cases. It should be within the competence of the Department to redeploy staff to prevent a hold-up in dealing with applications.
I should like to point out to the Chair that Deputy Wilson, who sought the question on the Adjournment, had intended to speak but understood that the matter would be dealt with at a later stage.
