asked the Minister for the Environment if he will make a statement on the operation of the grant scheme for the £5,000 grant to local authority tenants surrendering their dwellings.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - £5,000 House Grant.
9.
This scheme, announced in Building on Reality, 1985-1987, has proved very successful. From its inception until 31 March 1986, 6,321 applications have been received by local authorities, 4,347 have been approved, and 2,790 have been paid. As a direct result of the scheme 2,200 dwellings became available for letting to housing applicants in 1985 — a significant contribution to the housing of nearly 12,000 applicants by local authorities during the year. So far this year an estimated 1,600 dwellings have similarly become available for letting and I am confident that the total number for the year will exceed the 1985 figures. As over 40 per cent of the grant recipients have purchased new houses, the scheme is of considerable benefit to the building industry also. I am also pleased at the way in which the scheme has widened the opportunities for home ownership for so many people and enabled them to house themselves in dwellings of their choice.
I might pose two questions arising out of the Minister's reply. First, would he agree that the scheme, while having many desirable attributes, has one serious disadvantage in that its provisions are having the effect that only people who are in employment are in a position to avail of its benefits and that, consequently, many local authority housing estates are becoming more and more concentrated with people who are all unemployed; that there is an undesirable demographic imbalance taking place, concentrating all unemployed people within certain estates? Second, does the Minister not regard it as strange that a person wishing to avail of the provisions of this scheme to buy a house can buy any other house that may be for sale except the one in which he is living? Does the Minister have any plans to vary that system, or introduce a scheme under which a person could avail of the provisions and buy the acutal local authority dwelling in which he happens to be living at the time, if he is so minded?
I could not accept what appears to be inherent in the first part of the Deputy's question — that tenants who remain in local authority estates are in some way inferior to those who might opt to avail of the provisions of this scheme. Also we ought to avail of every opportunity to assist people who have the aspiration for home ownership, which is one of the very positive aspects of this scheme. I know that in a small number of cases there have been complaints made in regard to certain estates in the Dublin area along the lines outlined by the Deputy. But I am advised by Dublin Corporation, the main housing authority in the area concerned, that they feel these complaints have been grossly exaggerated. Of course, the question of the management of their estates is primarily one for the housing authority involved.
In relation to the second part of the Deputy's question, one of the main reasons it was possible to introduce this scheme was that the applicant availing of the grant and vacating his local authority house in order to purchase another, freed that house, making it available in turn to another applicant on the waiting list. The comparative economics as between providing a new home or being able to offer that vacated unit makes the scheme very attractive as a supplement to the housing programme.
Is the Minister aware that the view of the sisters and priests serving in the west Tallaght area, in the parishes of Brookfield, Fettercairn and Jobstown, is that the scheme as it operates at present has a totally unintended consequence in that it is producing a ghetto, with unemployment four times the national average and with very serious and unacceptable levels of poverty — their words, not mine — and that the danger of serious social unrest in such a context is very grave? While the situation I have just outlined is true, in their view it can only get progressively worse as a very large population of young children grow into their teens. Would the Minister accept that that is the view of the priests and nuns working in one araa which has seen a quite unintended side effect of the provisions of the scheme as they operate at present? Furthermore, does the Minister not accept that it is time the scheme was altered because of this?
That is also the view of most public representatives in that area.
As I have said, the local authority involved hold a somewhat different view. They say that the reports of the extent of the perceived problem have been grossly exaggerated. They feel it is manageable. I am not clear from the Deputy's question whether he feels that the scheme ought to be abandoned.
We cannot allow a debate on this.
The Minister is well aware that on the last occasion on which he answered questions in the House I asked him to alter the scheme to allow it to operate for those already in possession of their homes to buy their existing homes rather than new ones. Is the Minister aware that in the Fettercairn parish, for example, with a population of 700 families, 177 families have left and have been replaced by 95 families who are unemployed? In Brookfield, of 464 families — 100 of those being single-parent families — 55 families have left and the unemployment rate is now up to 65 per cent. In Jobstown, out of 710 families 113 have left, where the unemployment rate is 61 per cent. They are the actual figures.
That is not a question.
In view of the serious social implications arising from these circumstances — in the words of the clergy, such things as boredom, tension, anxiety, breakdown of family life, drug abuse, vandalism, violence, anti-social behaviour——
I am not going to allow a debate on this.
Might I ask the Minister if, in view of this declared and obvious concern, seeing that six or seven families side by side are moving out, would the Minister——
I would remind the Deputy that this is Question Time.
——not accept that the time is opportune to effect a change in the operation of this scheme? While it has had the effect of affording people an opportunity of housing themselves, would the Minister change the scheme at this stage?
I must move on to the next question. We have been going on for almost 15 minutes on this.
Would the Minister change the scheme?
No.
The Minister is prepared to allow the scheme continue in this way?
Is the Minister aware that as a result of the operation of this scheme Dublin Corporation have lost approximately £1 million in rent revenue and that 75 per cent of replacement families in the houses that have been vacated are dependent on social welfare? Would the Minister indicate whether it is proposed to terminate this scheme, as has been rumoured, in some parts of Dublin by September?
I am calling Question No. 10.
I can only assume that that is more of the sort of propaganda we hear from the Deputy's party.
What sort of propaganda?
(Interruptions.)
I think we will have to lobby the Taoiseach on this. That seems to be the way to get the Minister to reply.
Just a moment, this question was well under way and had been dealt with fairly well when Deputy R. Burke came in to the House and, for obvious reasons, I allowed him ask a generous question on it, but I am not going to allow a second round.