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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 30 Jun 1992

Vol. 421 No. 8

Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1992: Committee Stage (Resumed).

Debate resumed on amendment No. 8:
In page 5, before section 2, to insert the following new section:
"2.—It shall be a principal objective of national housing policy that, before 31st December, 1999, all families be accommodated in spacious and comfortable housing at a cost they can afford, and be located in an external environment which is pleasant and wholesome.".
—(Deputy J. Mitchell.)

Amendment No. 8 reads: "In page 5, before section 2, to insert the following new section:——

The House appreciates the Deputy's esprit de corps and reminds her that repetition is not in order.

I will be handing over to my colleague immediately. This amendment represents a major objective of Fine Gael policy and I am happy to support it. Members who represent the Dublin area in particular know the conditions under which many people are living. This is a most worthy provision in a housing Bill.

Before progress was reported Deputies Gilmore, Sherlock and Mitchell reinforced their arguments in favour of this amendment. Deputy Gilmore accused me of being less than interested in this matter. I wish to reiterate what I said on Second Stage, that I was not interested in understating the extent of the real housing needs. I was not denying these had increased in the past couple of years. I spelled out what the latest assessment had shown in relation to the number of households on the approved lists at present. I indicated also that 6,700 households on the approved housing lists were one person households and another 2,800 were couples without children. I told the housing committee of Dublin County Council — Deputy Gilmore seemed not to appreciate this — that it was very important to house homeless people and that it was part of the local authorities' responsibility. There seems to have been an implication tonight, as on the last occasion I met that committee, that no progress was made, when 100 or more were placed in housing accommodation by the local authority. That is a welcome development. We encourage that and we want to see more of it.

Since taking up office a few months ago I obtained Government approval for this Bill. I am now trying to ensure this legislation is passed so that local authorities can make a great effort to deal with the housing problem. The range of options open to local authorities this year will enable them to provide 7,000 households between casual vacancies, new house accommodation, the work in lieu of local authority housing involving extensions and the tremendous developments that are taking place in the voluntary sector.

I listened on a number of occasions to Deputies referring only to the house building programme. While that is very important and will remain so in the future, it is just one element of how we are trying to deal with this problem. It will mean local authorities will rehouse under one or other of these schemes more than 2,000 more than was possible last year. By any stretch of the imagination that is a substantial improvement and that is the way we want to keep it going. We need to put that momentum behind the passage of this Bill and how its provisions are implemented by local authorities.

There was approval last year for 1,300 new house starts. Local authorities completed 1,180 new starts, leaving a short-fall. Since my appointment I have visited a number of local authorities, met the housing committees and asked them to come up with new, more imaginative schemes. I said I was not interested in the big peripheral schemes on the outskirts of towns without the amenities. I met broad acceptance for that kind of thinking and I know it is supported in this House. I also made it my business to check out the current position. Allowing for the starts which were not commenced last year, and the approval for first starts this year, almost 1,500 new starts are available to local authorities but fewer than 300 have commenced. At planning and tender stage there are a further 584.

It is very important in the range of options we have that we ensure as public representatives that the response is better than that. We need to address such areas particularly with reference to local elected members who seem to be concentrating on the national Exchequer with the Department of the Environment being the trustee of taxpayers, for more resources. They do not look to the implementation of a social housing plan or, indeed, the other areas of development which need to take place. I will look for the maximum resources within the context of national financial constraints. As Minister for the Environment I will fight every inch of the way to get an increase in those resources. I have some plans to deliver on that. I want more progress in meeting the needs of those on local authority lists for rehousing.

We all agree on the broad aspirations enshrined in the policy statement but, as I said earlier, it is a policy statement which is not suitable for inclusion in fundamental legislation. For that reason I disagree with its inclusion in the Bill. However, the non-inclusion of this amendment does not affect my desire and commitment to reaching the kind of targets possible, indeed the most ambitious ones possible, but there are constraints and circumstances over which we do not have control. I want people to apply their minds to control because, while you may aspire to certain objectives and decide certain figures, in the final analysis the matter will require real effort by the local authorities. They will need new ideas on how to solve these problems in the future and the passage of this Bill is one part of that.

We will have to imagine the houses.

Will the Deputies bear in mind that this Bill concludes at 10.30 p.m.?

I will resist the temptation to make further remarks.

Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 47; Níl, 61.

  • Ahearn, Therese.
  • Allen, Bernard.
  • Barnes, Monica.
  • Barrett, Seán.
  • Barry, Peter.
  • Belton, Louis J.
  • Boylan, Andrew.
  • Bradford, Paul.
  • Browne, John (Carlow-Kilkenny).
  • Bruton, Richard.
  • Byrne, Eric.
  • Connor, John.
  • Cotter, Bill.
  • Deenihan, Jimmy.
  • Doyle, Joe.
  • Durkan, Bernard.
  • Enright, Thomas W.
  • FitzGerald, Garret.
  • Flaherty, Mary.
  • Flanagan, Charles.
  • Gilmore, Eamon.
  • Harte, Paddy.
  • Higgins, Michael D.
  • Hogan, Philip.
  • Howlin, Brendan.
  • Kavanagh, Liam.
  • Kenny, Enda.
  • Lee, Pat.
  • McCartan, Pat.
  • McCormack, Pádraic.
  • McGahon, Brendan.
  • McGrath, Paul.
  • Mitchell, Jim.
  • Moynihan, Michael.
  • Nealon, Ted.
  • Noonan, Michael.
  • (Limerick East).
  • O'Keeffe, Jim.
  • O'Shea, Brian.
  • O'Sullivan, Gerry.
  • O'Sullivan, Toddy.
  • Owen, Nora.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Ryan, Seán.
  • Sherlock, Joe.
  • Spring, Dick.
  • Timmins, Godfrey.
  • Yates, Ivan.

Níl

  • Ahern, Dermot.
  • Ahern, Michael.
  • Aylward, Liam.
  • Barrett, Michael.
  • Brady, Gerard.
  • Brady, Vincent.
  • Connolly, Ger.
  • Coughlan, Mary Theresa.
  • Cowen, Brian.
  • Cullimore, Séamus.
  • Daly, Brendan.
  • Davern, Noel.
  • Dempsey, Noel.
  • Dennehy, John.
  • de Valera, Síle.
  • Ellis, John.
  • Fahey, Frank.
  • Fitzpatrick, Dermot.
  • Flood, Chris.
  • Gallagher, Pat the Cope.
  • Harney, Mary.
  • Hillery, Brian.
  • Hilliard, Colm.
  • Hyland, Liam.
  • Jacob, Joe.
  • Kelly, Laurence.
  • Kenneally, Brendan.
  • Kirk, Séamus.
  • Kitt, Michael P.
  • Kitt, Tom.
  • Lawlor, Liam.
  • Brennan, Séamus.
  • Briscoe, Ben.
  • Burke, Raphael P.
  • Callely, Ivor.
  • Clohessy, Peadar.
  • Collins, Gerard.
  • Leonard, Jimmy.
  • Lyons, Denis.
  • Martin, Micheál.
  • McCreevy, Charlie.
  • McDaid, Jim.
  • McEllistrim, Tom.
  • Molloy, Robert.
  • Morley, P.J.
  • Noonan, Michael J.
  • (Limerick West).
  • O'Connell, John.
  • O'Dea, Willie.
  • O'Donoghue, John.
  • O'Hanlon, Rory.
  • O'Toole, Martin Joe.
  • Power, Seán.
  • Quill, Máirín.
  • Smith, Michael.
  • Stafford, John.
  • Treacy, Noel.
  • Tunney, Jim.
  • Wallace, Dan.
  • Wilson, John P.
  • Woods, Michael.
  • Wyse, Pearse.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Flanagan and Boylan; Níl, Deputies Dempsey and Clohessy.
Amendment declared lost.
Amendments Nos. 9 to 11, inclusive, not moved.
Question proposed "That section 2 stand part of the Bill.'

This section deals with shared ownership leases which represents the flagship in relation to the Government's approach to social housing. In particular I would like to draw the attention of the House to the ultimate cost of purchasing a house under the shared ownership scheme. The section provides for a shared ownership lease covering a period of between 20 years and 100 years and for a payment of between 25 per cent and 75 per cent of the market value of the house. The normal shared ownership lease provides for a payment of 50 per cent.

Let us assume that a person enters into a shared ownership lease for 25 years initially and that the price of the house is £40,000. During the first 25 years the applicant will have two payments to make. First, he will have to make a repayment on the loan of £20,000 to purchase his half of the house and, second, he will have to pay rent on the portion owned by the local authority. At the end of the 25-year period he will have to set about purchasing the second half of the house.

I have seen the figures which have been produced by Dún Laoghaire Corporation for applicants under the shared ownership scheme and they assume that the cost of the house is £40,000. There are not too many of those in Dún Laoghaire——

Spacious.

——but if one could find one one would have to take out a £20,000 loan for a period of 25 years while the remaining £20,000 which would be updated, would have to be paid during the second period of 25 years.

The total cost involved is enormous. We are talking here about people with an annual income of £12,000 or less. First, they are facing a weekly mortgage repayment of £45.28 for 25 years and a rental payment of £19.45 in the first year. If we assume that rents will increase at the rate of inflation by year 25 the weekly rental payment will have reached £50 approximately. Second, they are facing repayment on the other half of the house at the end of the 25-year period. Assuming a 3 per cent rate of inflation the £20,000 will have become £41,875 by the year 2005, or £67,727 if the rate of inflation runs at 5 per cent.

The total cost involved for somebody, first of all, in the rent they will pay the local authority will be £42,000 over the 25 years. Then they will pay £58,000 in mortgage repayments. In other words, they will have paid £100,000 by the time the 25 years will have elapsed, at which stage, having paid £100,000 they will own half a house only. They must then proceed to buy the second half of the house. The repayments on the remaining £52,000 over the following 25 years — on the normal assumptions about rates of interest and so on — will be another £150,000. This means that somebody in receipt of an income of less than £12,000, buying a house under the shared ownership scheme in 1992, is facing into paying £250,000 over a 50-year period, that is, of course, assuming that they are still around for the 50 years to pay that amount of money.

I accept fully your ruling on the matter, a Cheann Comhairle, but I had attempted to introduce a number of amendments to try to remedy that position. There are two things to which the Minister should give consideration. First, the amount of money that should be required to be paid after the end of the 25 years should be the £20,000; in other words, I do not think that capital sum should escalate. Second, credit should be given to a purchaser for the rent they will have paid over the 25-year period to the local authority.

There are many attractions in the shared ownership scheme. The idea in principle is a good one, enabling people to purchase their houses. But it is just too much for many potential applicants whose income will be less than £12,000 in the first place to have to face into what will amount to a 50-year indebtedness and repayments which, in total, will run to the order of £250,000. I would ask the Minister to address the amount that will ultimately have to be paid, and, second, to devise some way of crediting the rental income paid to local authorities against the final sum that must be paid.

We do not need to overstate the case about defects in the proposals in this and the next two sections. As Deputy Gilmore has said, we on the Opposition benches have, by various methods, endeavoured to amend the provisions to render them more sensible and viable, but because, by implication, they would involve a charge on the Exchequer, our amendments have been ruled out of order.

The arguments advanced by Deputy Gilmore are defective to this extent only, that anyone who mortgages a property almost always repays over the repayment period, whether that be 20, 25 or 30 years, a much greater nominal sum than was borrowed originally. To that extent Deputy Gilmore's arguments rob the case of its real contention, that is, that the people at whom the shared ownership scheme is aimed, are, by definition people who can afford to buy only half a house and cannot afford to buy a whole house. Yet, under the proposal before us, such people will be required to buy the whole house over a very prolonged period of time; in other words, they will take out a mortgage over the normal period of 20 to 30 years. Then they will be expected to take out another mortgage on the second half of that house, in the meantime having paid rent on the second half without any allowance being made for it. This means they are doubly penalised. First, they can obtain mortgage interest relief only on the half they are buying. Second, if a spouse dies during the repayment period, the mortgage protection policy will cover only half the house and the surviving spouse will be left with the other half of the house and those payments to be made. Third, such people are placed at a complete disadvantage compared with tenants who become tenant purchasers because no discount is provided in respect of the rent paid. Those are some of the defects in the proposal before us.

Deputy Gilmore was right in saying that the type of payments we are asking people to pay each month to buy half a house are extraordinary when one takes into account that, by definition, these will be people who cannot afford to buy a whole house, people who are less well off. Deputy Gilmore mentioned a figure of £60 or £67; certainly between repayments and rent they will be meeting minimum payments in excess of £50 per week. We must remember that these are people who are less well off, who cannot afford to buy a whole house. The Minister should reflect on this point.

I suspect that a number of people, not a great many will become involved in this proposal. For example, I know that in Dublin Corporation's Loans and Grants Section, officials, while not saying so specifically in the advice and interviews they are giving, are drawing people's attention to the drawbacks of this scheme, rightly so, because the same officials saw the difficulties of the low rise mortgage scheme some years ago which was addressed to the same market. I know it would mean more cost to the Exchequer but our proposal would mean a more effective housing policy without "up front" cost to the Exchequer.

These are things the Minister should consider. First he should consider providing that, in the case of the death of one spouse during the repayment period of the mortgage on one half of the house, some form of insurance would be provided to cover the whole cost of the house. A widow, by definition, a poor person, without her husband and his salary, cannot continue to bear the brunt of repayments. Second, the Minister should make provision for building into the rented half of the house the same concessions as were available to tenant purchasers under the 1988 tenant purchase scheme. This would mean that, when so many years would have elapsed, a tenant would receive an annual discount of 3 per cent in addition to whatever other capital grants were available so as to enable people to purchase their homes. There was a third provision I had in mind, which, for the moment, I have forgotten, but this scheme could be made much more workable and successful.

I know the Minister will be reluctant to make it too attractive. By that I mean he will not want to push into this market people who, at a stretch, can really afford to buy a whole house of their own; I understand that. At the same time, if those who are working but in receipt of low pay are to be assisted as is the intention under the provisions of this Bill — and basically the idea is good — amendments along the lines suggested by myself and other Deputies which have been ruled out of order, along with the suggestions made in the House this evening, should be reconsidered by the Minister, in whole or in part, or in some refined manner, for Report Stage, as they would greatly improve this shared purchase scheme. Otherwise the description I gave this Bill, when first published, will stand, that it is half a housing policy and incomplete. It is a good idea in so far as it goes but it does not go far enough. It would be a good day's work were the Minister to accept our suggestions.

On Second Stage I gave an example similar to Deputy Gilmore's of a problem I see in shared ownership. The time lag between buying one half of the house and then some years later buying the other means that one is really putting back a very heavy burden for later years. People are attracted to this scheme because the local authorities cannot provide them with housing. We now know why the Minister refused to give us a date for a local authority purchase scheme. If we saw a purchase scheme running in parallel with this shared ownership scheme the difference in the purchase price of a house as between each of the schemes would be obvious. Under a previous purchase scheme, instead of buying half a house as under this scheme, one bought a whole house for half the price. That was much more attractive and I do not blame the Minister for changing that.

In the coming year 14 houses will be built by Wicklow County Council. That means that of the 772 people on the housing list there, the vast majority — 90 per cent and more — will have no hope of being housed this year, next year or the year after. Therefore, they have to look at what is available, and shared ownership is what is available. This is being offered as an alternative to local authorities providing houses for people on their lists.

It will all be looked at from the point of view of what people can afford out of the limited amount they have even on the maximum income. I assume they will look at the longest term for which they can get a loan or lease. Under this it is between 20 and 100 years. The deciding factor will be what a person will have to pay out every week to get a house. If these people get into trouble, will they be able to apply to a health board for a mortgage subsidy? That may be a solution, but it is all State money and we are really going around in circles taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another. Will the Minister explain that to us? The weakness in the scheme is that it is in competition with the local authority purchase scheme. It would certainly be shown up if it were similar to the last purchase scheme. The Minister should come clean on this and say what advantages, if any, there are in being housed this way as against expecting the local authority to provide a house and waiting around for a purchase scheme under which one can buy the house for half price.

I am calling Deputy McCartan.

The Chair should have regard to proportionality. We are getting tired of this. I am sorry to protest Sir, but I am justified.

The Chair has an obligation to minorities also.

I do not want to take away from Deputy Mitchell's cause of pleasant, wholesome housing. Nevertheless, I want to make some brief comments on this important section. As chairman of the housing committee of Dublin Corporation I have grave reservations about this scheme. It will get off the ground and there are people who are anxious to avail of it although the more they learn of the implications of it the more slowly they turn towards it. Officials of Dublin Corporation have gone to great lengths to explain to intending applicants the figures involved because they are extremely concerned not to find themselves, four or five years down the road, involved in repossessions on behalf of the Minister due to people defaulting under the scheme with the resultant problem of reselling the houses and then rehousing the people concerned. What will happen is that in five, ten or 15 years the scheme will collapse and we will simply be writing off losses.

I appreciate that in a section dealing with a national scheme one cannot look for particularity. However, because of the way it is operated it exercises a very invidious discrimination against Dublin and, perhaps, other areas. That discrimination turns on house prices. The Minister is talking to people who are earning £12,000 per annum or under. Dublin Corporation estimate that almost 80 per cent of the people on their housing lists at whom this scheme is specifically aimed are on social welfare. Social welfare is a national standard of living but house prices do not have the same uniformity.

I am advised by Dublin Corporation officials who attended the major housing conference in Kilkenny that some local authorities who are using this scheme are accommodating people whose entire income consists of social welfare. It is great if that is happening and people who would otherwise have little prospect of ever getting a house are getting a roof over their heads. However, because house prices in the city of Dublin are twice if not three times the price of a comparable house in Kilkenny or elsewhere the scheme cannot work. No one in Dublin on social welfare will qualify under the standards set by our officials trying to implement this scheme. In that context there is an invidious discrimination and the Minister must try to devise some way to make this operable in the city and, most specifically, to make it universally fair so that people throughout the country will have an equal opportunity to avail of it. The question of the price of property is central. I do not know how the Minister can address it; I have no particular suggestion. As it is a national scheme I did not propose an amendment. However, I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me make the point. It is an urgent problem that requires a response from the Minister if not by way of amendment on Report Stage certainly by some indication that the scheme can be amended to deal with the problem we have in Dublin. I understand from Deputy Durkan that this problem exists in the peripheral areas of Kildare and elsewhere.

I do not want to be argumentative but it is unfair that a party with more than 50 Members should be left waiting while two or three other Members from the minority parties contribute one after the other.

I cannot say there will be ample time because there is a time limit, but Members will be facilitated. It is the function of the Chair to call Members and he does that in what he believes to be a very fair and impartial manner.

The shared ownership scheme and the scheme for voluntary organisations were the two keystones of the so-called social housing policy. These schemes are shams and should be seen as such. This scheme exploits people who, because of the long waiting lists in all local authority areas, are unable to get housing. They are now being offered a doubtful scheme which I believe will be a millstone around the necks of many people in the years ahead. Deputy Mitchell and other speakers referred to the rent element of the scheme which they believe will increase over the years. The proposal put forward by my party that the rent element should be confined to 25 per cent of the mortgage repayments should be taken on board by the Minister. This would give some semblance of hope to housing applicants.

As Deputy McCartan said, people on social welfare are in a very awkward position. Statistics show that nearly 80 per cent of housing applicants on the waiting list in Cork city are social welfare recipients. This scheme offers very little hope to these people. Recently a young couple who both worked in the same electronics company in Cork had the sanction for their loan withdrawn after they both lost their jobs; because they were on social welfare, they were deemed to have an inadequate income. Where will these people end up? They will go on the waiting list and will have to wait for four or five years to get a house. Worse still, they may have to emigrate.

As Deputy Mitchell said, there are defects in the scheme — for example, the mortgage protection element. I should like the Minister to outline what happens in cases of marital breakdown. If a couple want to split their joint assets, where do they stand in regard to their liabilities? I do not think this issue has been thought out and I should like to hear the Minister's views on it. As I said, this scheme cannot rectify our serious housing crisis. In fact, it exploits the hopes of people in a very cruel way; they will end up in a much worse position than they are at present. I advise people who visit my clinics to think twice about taking up the scheme. Unfortunately, most of these people have no other option. It may be a harsh thing to say, but at times this scheme reminds me of the loans given by loan sharks. People who borrow from loan sharks have to make inflated repayments. This scheme does essentially the same thing: people are offered a house and the rent may subsequently go through the roof, so to speak, in years to come. I believe we will all live to regret it if the Minister's proposal is given the go ahead by this House. I ask the Minister to re-examine it.

All Members who have spoken have shown their clear under- standing of the rudiments of the workings of the loan system operated by local authorities. I believe all of them have practical experience of this. My local authority studied and tried to operate the shared ownership scheme. I have to say that there are many flaws in this scheme. I hope the Minister recognises these flaws. The points made by Deputy Gilmore, Deputy McCartan, Deputy Mitchell and Deputy Allen have been well made and should be taken on board by the Minister.

It is accepted — Deputy Mitchell alluded to this — that a person who repays a mortgage over 30 years or longer can expect to pay something like four times the original capital cost of the house. However, under this scheme people will pay about six times the original cost of the house. In fact, they do not have any guarantee that it will only be six times the original cost. As Deputy Gilmore said, the second part of the equity is likely to be assessed on the basis of its value at the time of purchase, which could be in 20 or 25 years' time. This is a dangerous way to proceed. Unfortunately, the people involved are the sector of the community whom we are all allegedly trying to help. What this scheme will do is extract more money from them and penalise them in an unbelievable way.

This scheme allegedly helps people with incomes of £12,000 or less. If one spouse has an income of £11,000 and the other has an income of £4,000 or £5,000 they do not qualify as their income limit drops to £10,000. I have discussed this issue with officials of the Department over the past few months, as I am sure everyone here has done. I cannot understand why a husband and wife whose combined income is £12,000 are ineligible and why the ceiling is automatically reduced to £10,000. In order to qualify they can only earn £5,000 each. I cannot for the life of me understand how a couple with a joint income of £10,000 can be expected to buy the second part of their equity within a reasonable time. If the wife becomes pregnant and decides to stay at home her husband will not be able to buy out the other half of the equity, let alone buy the first half of it. I hope the Minister will increase the income limit to £12,000 without any restrictions. Indeed, it should be raised to £14,000 in order to give those people a reasonable chance of repaying their loans.

Consideration should also be given to the size of the family. I cannot understand why a husband and wife with one child are assessed on the same basis as a husband and wife with five or six children. It does not require a great deal of imagination to recognise that a husband and wife with five or six children — these families are few and far between nowadays, but there are some — need a higher income in order to repay their loan and have a reasonable standard of living than a husband and wife with one child.

I wish to make a final point. This issue was raised by Deputy Gregory in the House last week. I do not think the social housing policy was ever meant to replace previous housing legislation: it was meant to supplement it but not replace it. If the Minister thinks that the social housing policy enunciated in this House over a year ago is going to resolve our housing crisis then I am afraid he is going to be seriously disappointed. There is no way in which it will resolve the present problems. In 1985 approximately 450 loans were processed by Kildare County Council for people on low incomes. Last year only 48 loans were processed. This year the figure will probably be 60 or 65. In 1985 there were approximately 200 people on the housing waiting list. The number was being reduced all the time by schemes such as the HFA scheme etc. There is little possibility of reducing the waiting list at present. The maximum income limit for annuity loans, income related loans or convertible loans is £25,000.

As has been pointed out by Deputy Gilmore and Deputy McCartan, not many houses can be bought in urban areas within 50 miles of Dublin for that amount of money. It is ridiculous to expect people to go into the marketplace and buy houses unless they receive a supplementary loan from a bank, a building society or elsewhere. If they are eligible for such a loan they should not be on the housing list and should not be allowed participate in this loan scheme. The danger is that they will be forced into getting a supplementary loan from a bank or a loan shark. In those circumstances the real problem will begin four or five years down the road because the loan shark or lending institution who advanced the loan will demand their repayments regardless of the circumstances. Where will the husband and wife who started off with £5,000 each and only one of whom is now working find the money to repay the loan? They will have no chance of doing so.

I overheard a person speak recently about this scheme, and the comments were not very charitable. The conclusion was that the scheme was thought up cynically, in a manner which would make it virtually impossible for some people to qualify and those who did qualify would find it impossible to repay the money. I cannot understand the logic behind such a scheme at a time when there are more people on housing lists than at any time in the past 20 years. I implore the Minister not to reject all the suggestions made on this side of the House on the basis of political criticism. He should recognise that these people have first hand experience of dealing with applicants on a regular basis and not just for a period of just three or four months. I would ask the Minister to have due regard to the points raised. If he does not address them in this Bill, or by way of regulations, the whole system will flounder.

I will start with a word of caution to the Minister. If he thinks he will make his reputation as Minister for the Environment solving the housing problems by this scheme he had better think again. He should find some other method of making his reputation and leaving a lasting mark in the Department of the Environment. When this scheme was announced with the greatest of fanfare, Prone-speak and PR that could be mustered by the former Minister, Deputy Flynn, it was supposed to be the be all and end all of all our housing problems. It was interesting that the Minister launched the scheme on Valentine's Day, a rather cynical exercise considering that St. Valentine is the saint of love, caring and cherishing. The shared ownership scheme seems to be a good scheme but there are many difficulties with it, some of which have been raised by my colleagues. I would like to tease out some more points.

As regards the whole question of rent, the explanatory memorandum issued by the Department in May 1991 stated that the rent would be payable monthly and would be revised on 1 July each year by reference to the change in the consumer price index. I assume that is still the case. House prices in the county and city of Dublin are enormously high compared with those in the rest of the country. A couple participating in these schemes could find that the rent increased month by month and year by year for the simple reason that the area in which their house is located was more highly valued on the consumer price index. The Minister should give an assurance that there would be a maximum rent in relation to the mortgage paid for the house.

There is also a meanness about this scheme. This is a shared ownership scheme whereby the occupiers take out a mortgage to pay half the cost while the local authority pay the other half. In these circumstances who pays the cost of insurance and maintenance? If there is a fire in the house and part of the house is damaged, presumably the couple will have to cover the bill for maintenance and repairs. In many cases people are unable to afford to pay insurance costs. The number of local authority tenants who no longer have household insurance is frightening. Insurance agents in my constituency tell me that year by year they are losing insurers. If the local authorities do their job properly they will ensure that the building is insured, but more and more households are unable to pay the price of insurance for the contents of the house with the result that week after week we hear about fund-raising exercises for people who had no insurance and lost all their possessions in fires. The Minister should look again at the section which provides that the applicants be responsible for maintenance and insurance. That cost should be shared between the two owners, the local authority and the people buying the house.

The Minister thinks that this is a very desirable scheme. On 31 March 1992 there were 2,117 applicants for housing in County Dublin. These included one parent and two parent families as well as elderly people. Of that number 1,585 were social welfare recipients; only 495 were employed — that is a hidden figure because it included those on FÁS and social employment schemes who, because they do not have a permanent income, are not eligible to participate in the scheme; 15 were on family maintenance and 22 had no income details. Therefore, of those 2,117 families only about 1 per cent are eligible to apply for the scheme.

I am very concerned that the Minister is not aware of the difficulties being encountered, particularly in the case of one parent families and marriage breakdown. It is a common occurrence for men to leave women and children and in these cases if the woman on a lone parent allowance is unable to pay the mortgage repayment and the rent for the share of the council's ownership she is thrown out of the house. She will then have to join the people on the housing list. If the local authority sell the house will they get their share of the price? These are the nitty gritty details that are unknown to council officials. They have not been given the full information on the scheme by the Department, and this Bill makes it no clearer. The Minister has a day's work in trying to sell this scheme and make it work.

It appears that the Minister and the Department, having looked at the figures, decided that the cost of providing and maintaining local authority housing was so great that they had to think of something else. Consequently, they came up with this half-baked scheme of shared ownership. Shared ownership is a means of enabling the occupier to purchase a portion of the equity in a house and to pay a rent to the owner. The shared ownership lease of a house may be granted to any person, including a corporate body or housing authority. The provisions of the Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) (No. 2) Act, 1978, do not apply in this case. Therefore landlords will have a field day, as will the financial institutions who encourage people who previously took out loans from the local authority to remortgage their houses. This is happening on a regular basis. Many of them are finding it difficult to repay their mortgage under the SDA scheme, so they approach the financial institutions for remortgaging facilities in order to redeem their loans from the local authority. This was stated quite recently in reply to a question put to the Cork County Manager. The finance is coming back into the local authority. I would ask the Minister to look at the local authority SDA scheme and if loans were available to people at a fixed rate of interest we would know exactly what their commitment would be.

Is the Minister aware that at present there is a shared ownership scheme though it has not been established on any formal basis because a high percentage of houses which were previously acquired by people who were tenants — tenant purchasers, or applicants under the scheme I referred to earlier — are now relying on the health boards, as mentioned by a previous Deputy, for supplementary welfare allowance towards their mortgage? This is a growing phenomenon on the issue of housing and housing loans. There are criteria for assessing the percentage of repayment they get towards their mortgage. Many people at present are relying on the supplementary welfare allowance. How can they be expected to make mortgage repayments and pay rent at the same time? This point has been made by previous speakers. It may work for a couple of years. Could the Minister indicate if the person's mortgage will be a mortgage under shared ownership, if it will be recognised under the Finance Act and whether there will be tax relief on the mortgage?

Is it the Minister's intention to continue making provision for SDA loans in the future and is the income limit of either £10,000 or £12,000 realistic at this time, given that a person in receipt of £10,000 will have very little disposable income when tax and PRSI have been deducted? Consequently, it will be very difficult for a person to acquire their own home if their income is £10,000 or less.

I totally disagree with this concept. I do not believe the State should be in the business of buying houses for people who cannot afford to provide them for themselves. The State may have a role, as referred to by Deputy Sherlock, in providing low interest loans for those who cannot afford normal commercial rates and I have no objection to that. In my own constituency there are between 1,200 and 1,300 people on the housing list in the Dún Laoghaire Corporation area, the county area of Dún Laoghaire constituency and some of Dublin South. People should not be discriminated against for being born in a certain area nor because property prices are such that they cannot afford to buy a house. There is little opportunity to participate in this scheme if one comes from the Dún Laoghaire constituency; the Minister might take note of this because he might learn something about Dublin housing. All these schemes are devised by people who do not know what it is like to live in a local authority house or represent a local authority estate in Dublin, particularly south Dublin. If they believe these schemes are feasible, they are fooling themselves; they will not work.

I will give an example of what has happened recently in housing. Houses provided by the taxpayers built five or six years ago and purchased under the purchase scheme brought out by the Fianna Fáil Government between 1987-89 are now being sold for £41,000 and £42,000, while the person who bought it under this scheme paid £14,000 for it. Therefore, the taxpayer is subsidising a profit of £28,000 in the period of three years. I would be surprised if anyone took up this scheme in the Dún Laoghaire constituency, but the only house they can buy is the same house that is now being sold for £41,000 and which was purchased three years ago. The taxpayer is burdened again and this is a crazy policy.

Successive Ministers for Local Government and the Environment and their advisers do not understand that many people born on the south side of Dublin are not in a position to pay £50,000 to £60,000 to purchase a house; that is why there are between 1,200 and 1,300 people on the housing list. The cost to the State of the type of accommodation that people are now forced to live in in these parts of Dublin is the direct cause of many marriage break-ups. The State will again have to intervene and fund deserted wives and care for children who are forced into this position by these pressures.

There is no alternative accommodation for such people. They cannot apply to the local authority because no local authority houses are being built. What options are open to them? They can live with their mothers-in-law, where there may be seven or eight people sharing two or three bedrooms and there may be three or four children. This is not the best way to start a marriage. No wonder there is a large number of marriage break-ups. People have told me in some parts of Ireland the scheme is working for social welfare recipients. I wish we had that luxury in certain parts of Dublin. In Dún Laoghaire one would have to pay up to £50 a week for one room in a three storey house, sharing a bathroom, if one was lucky enough to get a room, and if one had children one would not get a room. In this case, the State is paying £50 a week to a landlord who does not provide proper facilities; people have to share a bathroom, call to the community welfare officer to obtain rent subsidies, and meanwhile the racketeering landlords are laughing all the way to the bank because they keep increasing the rent and the State continues to dole out more money through the rent subsidy scheme. Is the Minister trying to convince me and others who represent Dublin constituents that this policy will work in Dublin?

Now in Dublin one has little choice, one should not get married if one does not have a house and there is no point in approaching the local authority because there are no local authority houses. The Government recently enacted the Homeless Persons Bill and everybody supported its purpose. The local authorities were to house the homeless, meanwhile no local authority houses are being built. What is now happening is that every single casual vacancy——

Gabh mo leithscéal. Deputy Barrett, we have a guillotine——

We are dealing with shared ownership.

It has nothing to do with the section.

We must conclude by 10.30 p.m., we are on Committee Stage.

I know that. The reason I am supporting this amendment in relation to shared ownership——

I have to ask the Deputy to confine his comments to what is in the section. There will be ample opportunity for dealing with what is in other sections.

There will not be, because the Chair is guillotining the Bill.

Maybe the Deputy missed Second Stage, but he cannot make a Second Stage speech now.

Second Stage was guillotined as well. Where does one go? Second Stage was guillotined as Committee Stage is being guillotined.

I would ask Deputy Barrett to apply his undoubted talents to section 2.

I am totally frustrated. Unfortunately, it is on the shoulders of Deputies representing Dublin constituencies that this problem rests. We face these problems every day of the week. I come in here to represent the views of people who do not have an opportunity to speak for themselves. If the Minister comes in here with a crazy proposal, that does not work in Dublin, I intend saying so.

Deputy Barrett, I am afraid you have not got that entitlement. The Deputy must represent his views in accordance with the order of this House, or else change them.

Maybe I should take off for Cuba as the only remaining Communist state. What I was saying does not sound too nice for the Government, and I appreciate that. If I am being quietened I will sit down.

I hope there is no inference in that or I will ask you to withdraw it.

Not the slightest. The Minister was getting very uncomfortable over there.

I do not know about the Minister's comfort——

He has been left on his own over there.

Do not worry.

There are not too many Dublin Deputies in to support the Minister anyway. I support the amendment tabled in relation to this. It does not matter whether or not it is passed because this is a crazy scheme which will not work. If it manages to house even one person I suppose it will have done some good. It certainly will not do anything for the unfortunates in Dún Laoghaire or in Dublin South and Dublin South-East. If one happens to have been born south of the Liffey one is in serious trouble with this Government. I support the amendment in that it at least makes some attempt to bring reality into the scheme. It certainly will not improve the situation.

Deputy Barrett is supporting an imaginary amendment. That is really a reductio ad absurdum if we ever had one.

This section must be looked at in the context of the overall problem necessitating an introduction of this shared ownership scheme. Certain aspects of this scheme are beneficial to a small minority of housing applicants. In the context of the crisis facing us we have to support that element of it.

Like other public representatives, if a housing applicant has any option other than this scheme, I would advise him to take it. We saw the effect that the Housing Finance Agency had on housing and the problems that arose from it. Perhaps 75 per cent of housing applicants here would not be able to avail of this scheme because they are on social welfare benefits. With regard to the other 25 per cent the criteria is ability to pay. In County Dublin the average price of a modest house is about £40,000. On half that sum, £20,000, one would repay a mortgage of £200 a month. An applicant must then pay an extra £1,000 per annum for the rented element. We are talking in terms of at least £70 per week. The Minister should consider the suggestions that are being made because even people who are working and who might be in a position to make the monthly repayments are reluctant to take up this scheme because of the escalating price of the rent and the mortgage after 25 years. The rented element in a £40,000 house should remain at £20,000. The Minister may say that that puts a cost on the State but we must consider this as part of a housing programme.

It is anticipated that in the EHB area this year £13 million will be paid by the State to private landlords to enable people to rent houses. That money should be re-directed to people on the housing lists who would like to avail of this scheme and some of it should be re-directed towards building local authority houses for people in need. It should not go into the pocket of the private landlord. The rented element of this scheme should not escalate on an annual basis. The Minister should accept our suggestion and come back to us on Report Stage.

Who will take responsibility for the debt if a person who has been successful in applying for this scheme becomes unemployed, or a spouse dies and the repayments cannot be kept up? Will it be the local authority, the building society or whatever? Will these organisations go to court to seek an eviction order for the people concerned? Where will the responsibility lie? Will the Minister look at that aspect and give me some guidance on it?

I hope the Minister will take our constructive suggestions on board so that this scheme, with limited appeal to a small sector of those on the housing list, can be implemented in a more attractive form.

I will be very brief. Housing department officials are very careful and prudent when dealing with applications under this scheme. They are anxious to consider only applicants in the income bracket between £10,000 and £12,000 because of their ability to meet their repayments. People with an income under £10,000 are being left out. As has been mentioned in the House tonight on a number of occasions, the cheapest house one can buy in southside Dublin costs in the region of £40,000. A constituent of mine applied for a loan under this scheme and the housing department after interviewing her, wrote and told her that repayments on a £40,000 house would be in the region of £285 per month — between the mortgage and rent repayments — and they asked the applicant how she intended to make these repayments. I think that is a reasonable way of approaching the matter. It is very difficult for applicants on this income level to meet such repayments.

I was very interested in this scheme because I felt it offered an opportunity to be housed to people who were working, had an income of between £10,000 and £12,000 but had no chance of being housed from the housing list. However, having examined the scheme in detail I saw the snags and I then asked a housing official what he thought of it. His reply was stark. He said: "Deputy, I would not recommend this scheme to my worst enemy."

First, let me say that we have our priorities wrong when we can deal with amendments to the Roads Bill by Special Committee and yet in the case of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill we are now only on section 2 and have less than half an hour in which to conclude this Stage. We seem to place greater priority on road building than on providing houses. We seem to be surrounded by Members from Dublin, with the exception of the Minister and myself.

Where all the problems are.

It is worth pointing out that the average cost of a new house in the Dublin area is £62,000 — that was the average price last year, and it had fallen by £2,000 from the previous year — and secondhand houses cost £60,000. In all other areas the average price of a new house is £53,000 and £51,000 for a secondhand house, but the pressure of the demand for housing in Dublin is affecting other areas——

Kildare, Wicklow, and Meath.

And greater Dublin.

——such as counties Kildare, Wicklow and Meath. In County Wicklow we have to provide houses not only for the people of Wicklow but for the people of Dublin and Wicklow and as a result the average price of a house in certain parts of County Wicklow is far higher than in the city of Dublin, believe it or not. Greystones is a large local authority area——

So is Arklow.

People experience problems with the cost of housing outside Dublin as houses are relatively expensive in certain areas.

I wish to address a question to the Minister. If having participated in this scheme one wants then to sell the house for whatever reason, can one go to the auctioneer and advertise part of the house for sale?

Perhaps you would draw a line down the middle and sell the kitchen and one bedroom.

Deputy Owen seems to be very anxious to help everybody, which is a commendable quality, but it does not help us on this occasion.

Quite recently I took it upon myself to check the scheme that was on offer on the far side of the Border with our counterparts there because I had understood that what we were proposing was on all fours with the schemes operating in the North and in the United Kingdom. I was quite pleased to learn that the scheme we had put in place is virtually on all fours with the scheme operating in the North. By coincidence the official I spoke to in the North had spent time with our officials in the Department of the Environment to explain how their scheme worked. He said this was an excellent scheme which was working well in the North as there was a tremendous take up and that approximately 80 per cent of those participating in the scheme ultimately bought out their houses in full.

I query how the scheme has operated to date in the South but that perhaps may be because the scheme is in its infancy and the legislation is not in place. I was perplexed about it and for that reason I contacted my counterparts across the Border. I was perplexed by the temporary letting agreement and the subsequent lease arrangement, but I found out that is the way it is handled in the North and that it is working well from both a practical and legal point of view. However I query the fact that the mortgage element comes down simply to the applicant's ability to pay, and some Deputies on the far side of the Chamber have articulated the difficulties this causes for people and the local authorities. I can appreciate that. There is no point in telling the large numbers on the housing list in receipt of social welfare that this scheme exists if they cannot avail of it because they are on social welfare. I understood the original intention was that those on social welfare as well as those who were not in full time employment could avail of this scheme; but my experience, unfortunately, is otherwise.

It was a Valentine promise.

We would all be in agreement with this but — and this is why I have intervened — I know that the Department have sent a circular to all the local authorities exhorting them to free up the scheme. It would be very relevant if the Minister were to state his views on this on an ongoing basis because the number who have taken up the scheme to date is few and far between. I think it is a good scheme. The experience in England and across the Border is excellent. For that reason we should compliment the Government for endeavouring to address the problem of the long waiting lists for housing in all our major urban areas.

Whose fault is that?

It is no good saying that we should provide more money for housing when in reality we cannot provide that money. People on the far side, particularly in the Fine Gael Party, are saying we should provide more money, but they were in power for years and they did not provide any money.

We built the houses. When we left office we had built more houses than this Government.

The reality is that you did not. It is no good saying that you have the panacea for all ills when you did not provide the money. Fine Gael do not have the right to say how we on this side will provide the money. This scheme makes a realistic effort to address the large numbers on the housing list at present.

The Deputy has undermined his case.

I know that the surveying of houses has given rise to problems. In one particular case in my own county the county council were lucky that the applicant wanted to buy a former local authority house. The local authority sent out a valuer who valued the house but it subsequently transpired — and at this point it was too late to do anything — that when they required the recipient to satisfy himself on the structural soundness of the house it was found that the house in question was slightly defective. It was at this stage that the county council decided to send out their own engineer, even though the application had gone so far down the line that they could not turn back. The Department should bear in mind that such things can happen. I am not advocating that the scheme be tied up with red tape, which, unfortunately, has been the experience down through the years of anyone who has obtained a loan, particularly because in several legal actions councils have been held responsible for defective houses. That is certainly true in my own county. The Department and the Minister should be aware that there is a problem in that regard and that it should be addressed.

In principle I give my compliments to the Minister and his predecessor for bringing in the shared ownership scheme. I give them credit for going to the trouble of finding out what the experience was in other jurisdictions. That experience was good and I have no doubt that, given the circumstances pertaining in this State, our experience should be good, provided that the initial teething problems are ironed out and provided that several points that have been raised genuinely by Members in the Chamber and by people outside the House are examined by the Minister and his Department.

I am very glad that the one contribution from this side of the House indicated that Deputy D. Ahern went to the trouble of determining whether there was enlightened thinking anywhere other than in this State.

He blew it, though.

Deputy Ahern found to his satisfaction that a very satisfactory shared ownership arrangement has been operated in the north of this country. There is no harm in telling Deputies that between 12,000 and 14,000 families are at present involved in shared ownership arrangements in the North and that those arrangements are working very satisfactorily. It appears that Deputies have made a very fundamental mistake in thinking that the shared ownership option is the only arrangement available to every single person who is on the housing list or who may come onto the housing list.

We do not make mistakes of that kind.

We understand.

I listened to Deputy Owen and I did not interrupt even though I was assailed. I want the Deputy to check the issue with her own local authority in order that she may find out that people are taking up a shared ownership arrangement at the rate of one a day. In County Dublin 30 shared ownership arrangements are being approved every month.

I have the figures — here they are.

Because they are desperate, that is why.

I did not interrupt and I have only a few minutes left. Last year there were 240 shared ownership arrangement approvals. For the first three months of this year the level of approvals has been almost trebled.

Because of desperation.

In spite of the resistance and in spite of the number of Deputies who have come into the House and said they would not advise their constituents to take up a shared ownership arrangement, the people are participating in the scheme. I am glad that the people are not taking the advice of those Deputies.

The Minister should talk to some of his own public representatives.

It is very wrong to paint a false picture. Deputies are doing no service to their constituents by talking about repossessions, desertions and fines as if such tragedies happened only to people who were in the shared ownership scheme. Deputies should grow up.

They create special problems.

Shared ownership arrangements create a special problem and the Minister has not handled it.

Such things can happen to people no matter what arrangement they have made to house themselves. The shared ownership scheme is an attractive and realistic option for certain categories——

Yes, certain categories.

——and I am glad that the scheme is being taken up at an accelerating rate. Deputies should recognise how wrong it is to frighten people who have an opportunity to participate in this scheme, people for whom the shared ownership scheme is their only realistic chance to purchase and own their own house. Earlier in the debate, when referring to the house purchase schemes, Deputy Mitchell made the point that we are talking about a group of people many of whom just miss out and who feel that they are just not able to purchase a house because the demands are too great. Deputies should remember that point. We are not talking about people who are able to buy a house fully, or people who are able to build their own house. We are talking about a category of people for whom this is the option and those people should be encouraged to avail of that option. I turn now to Dublin, as the Government have been accused that we do not understand Dublin, that we know nothing about the city of Dublin.

Would the Minister admit that?

We have heard lectures from a representative of south Dublin. What is the average price of secondhand houses in Dublin? Forty per cent of secondhand houses in Dublin are sold for less than £40,000. The statistics are undeniable.

Get off the stage.

Twenty per cent of those houses are sold for less than £30,000.

(Interruptions.)

I would buy a dozen of them if that were so.

The Minister cannot be serious.

Deputy Barrett, there must be a more convincing way for Deputies to indicate to the Minister that they do not agree with him. Perhaps it would not be bad if we could hear ourselves on the monitor.

It is a pity. No one should try to say that one can buy a secondhand house in Dublin for £30,000.

Where are these houses, Minister?

Will they have a fixed shower and bath, as the scheme provides?

I want to avail of a few minutes. I listened to other contributions and did not interrupt anybody.

Yes, I know. We shall let the Minister answer.

Deputy Allen from Cork made a completely irresponsible statement that I reject out of hand. Deputy Allen called the shared ownership housing scheme and the voluntary housing options contained in the scheme a sham. I want the Deputy to go to places in the north of the country. I want him to go to the 600 people who were approved under the scheme. He should talk to them in that vein. Perhaps he could go to Respond or Father Coogan in Thomastown, Waterford. In the Deputy's own constituency, Respond have applied for 40 units this year and the voluntary sector there will provide 600 units this year. It is wrong for a Deputy who is supposed to be representing that constituency to come into the House and try to frighten away people for whom this is an option by calling the two schemes a sham. The facts speak for themselves and the units that have been provided throughout this country by Respond, by the voluntary sector and by the number of people who are opting for the shared ownership scheme prove that the Deputy is completely wrong. It is a good job that Deputy Allen does not have a say in housing policy if that is the way he addresses housing problems.

Presumably in one case a local official in the housing section in dealing with a question from Deputy Doyle said that he would not recommend the scheme to his worst enemy. Such an attitude is out of touch and those who hold it should talk to somebody who is in touch. I recommend the Deputy to talk to somebody who is in touch with reality. I want housing officials to explain all the details. We do not want to hide anything and we want applicants to understand all the ramifications and everything that is involved in this scheme. We want them to understand the economic advantages presented by this scheme. I have already said that for people for whom this scheme is an option to own their own house, and only those people, this is the course to follow.

I have been recommended to freeze the remaining equity. Deputies should face facts. Time and time again Deputies say that they want to curtail public expenditure and the Fine Gael Party talk about their commitment to control public expenditure. It was not enough to leave this Government £200 million in unpaid bills when we took office in 1987——

(Interruptions.)

The Minister has been saving that one up.

Deputies should remember that somebody must give the loan the first day — and that somebody is the taxpayer.

Answer the problems. The Minister should tell us what would happen in the circumstance of a broken marriage.

Somebody must make the repayments. The simple truth is that the rents are linked to the CPI and not to house values, which are much more volatile.

Would the Minister consider the imposition of a ceiling?

In relation to the question of freezing the remaining equity, if a lessor obtains a loan in the first instance and makes repayments on the second half of the equity — if a 50 per cent equity is taken — is it realistic to expect the taxpayer to freeze the remaining equity if the equity has increased in value on foot of repayment against the loan?

It will be done anyway.

(Interruptions.)

I am glad Deputy Allen has returned because I want him to deal with the voluntary sector in his constituency where 40 units will be provided this year.

It is only the tip of the iceberg.

I will take him to Bakers' Road and to Douglas Road and other areas in his constituency to show him what is going on in the voluntary sector. The fact is that this is part of a housing package and the Deputy should make himself more familiar with the number who have in this year alone opted for shared ownership.

(Interruptions.)

I did not interrupt any Deputy. Why are they interrupting me?

The Minister is misrepresenting the people.

I listened to their attacks in silence. They are being answered but they cannot take it. They are going to have to take it——

(Interruptions.)

The Minister——

Deputy Allen, we had relative quiet until the Deputy arrived. He does not have to advertise——

The Minister is misrepresenting the situation and what is being said.

Deputy Allen will get an opportunity on some future occasion to correct any misrepresentations——

I will not. The debate is being guillotined.

——but he is not going to do so now. If he is uncomfortable I will ask him to leave. If the Deputy continues I will ask him to leave.

May I intervene to ask the Minister a question? There has been some hyperbole on both sides, but I have genuine reservations about this scheme. It is not correct to represent this scheme as being similar to what is operating in the UK.

(Interruptions.)

Deputy Mitchell, please. Deputies should behave themselves.

Rather than stimulating this kind of exchange why does the Minister not answer the questions?

The Deputies should check out the position with their local authorities.

I challenge Deputies opposite——

The Deputy is entitled to do that.

——to check with the Northern authorities as to the correctness of what I said. Is it not ironic that speakers from Fine Gael and Labour are criticising this side of the House, for making a genuine attempt to deal with the housing problem?

A Deputy

That is hypocrisy.

(Interruptions.)

I wish to reply to Deputy Sherlock who was worried about second mortgages. In recent times I have warned people who may be in some financial difficulty about being tempted by apparent attractive invitations to remortgage their houses. The shared ownership mortgages will qualify for the normal income tax relief. It was very unfair of Deputies Gilmore, Rabbitte and others when calculating the outlay involved in shared ownership to deliberately take no account of income tax relief or of the shared housing subsidy which puts a different picture on the £2,000 grant and the repayments to be made. We have not sufficient time to deal with everything.

That is the Minister's fault.

The fact is——

We put some suggestions to the Minister. Can he give us some answers to them?

I have put on record some details of the scheme but the Deputy deliberately ignored the reliefs, the subsidy and the new house grant that is available. It is very important that we encourage people to avail of this scheme. It is working very well in other places.

(Interruptions.)

We have received a number of applications and we are going to encourage them. The Deputies do not like to hear that. They would like to hear the scheme is not working and that nobody is interested in it.

A Deputy

The Minister got it wrong again.

I am doing my best to promote this scheme in co-operation with the local authorities. It is one part of a number of elements being used to deal with housing problems. Towards the end of this year I will review the matter and deal with whatever issues arise in the light of experience. The Deputy is shaking his head——

It took the Minister 12 months to produce this to the House.

It is in the House now.

Not for very long.

With all its warts; we are dealing with the pitfalls.

The surrender grant——

There is a surrender grant in this.

(Interruptions.)

In the opinion of the Chair all we want is a pack of cards and a chat. It is a very poor reflection on everybody's presence.

(Interruptions.)

To clear up a point I made, when I said the houses in Dublin were selling on average at the prices I indicated there was a big furore and, of course, it was not true. For houses between £30,000 and £40,000 the figure is 20.2 per cent.

For houses between £25,000 and £30,000 it is 10.1 per cent and not exceeding £25,000 it is 8.7 per cent. Those figures mean that 39 per cent are selling under £40,000.

(Interruptions.)

Have they hot and cold water, an indoor toilet or a shower? They have no rooms, they have a hole in the wall.

(Interruptions.)

In Dublin we provided £2 million last year and £2 million this year. The parties opposite did nothing like that when in power.

I wish I could buy a house in Malahide or Swords for £30,000.

(Interruptions.)

Without support, help or encouragement we are going to work this policy in Dublin and in other areas.

The Minister is driving people to the ropes. They have no option.

(Interruptions.)

The hundreds of applicants who are joining this scheme encourage us to go down that road. We will come up with other new ideas. It appears we can only expect a sterile response to change. I was delighted that the Opposition front bench spokesman on the Environment gave his views on this policy in his Second Stage contribution where I agreed with most of what he said because he backed the scheme all the way.

(Interruptions.)

The Minister did not answer my question.

Not for the first time I have been misrepresented by the Minister. He has spoken for 20 minutes and has not answered one of the many sensible questions put about the shared ownership scheme. I will repeat the questions that have been asked. What happens to the house if one spouse dies? What happens to the house if there is a fire? Who pays the insurance? Who does the repair work? What happens after 25 years when one share is bought? Do they get credit for each year of the tenancy as they would under a tenant purchase scheme? What about the other relevant questions that were asked? The Minister quoted statistics about Dublin and I will not dispute some of them but he ignored the situation in three-quarters of Dublin and surrounding areas. This Bill should not be rushed through the Dáil or the debate on it guillotined. It would have been better had the Minister sought to refer it to a Special Committee so that all these provisions could be teased out. I want to make a final point——

I must put the question——

In five or six years' time we will have so many problems that the State will have to bail people out. The Minister's housing policy is a farce.

It is a pathetic performance.

Question put: "That the amendments set down by the Minister for the Environment and not disposed of are hereby made to the Bill; in respect of each of the sections undisposed of, that the section or, as appropriate, the section, as amended, is hereby agreed to and that the Schedule and the Title are hereby agreed to."
The Committee divided: Tá, 63; Níl, 52.

  • Ahern, Dermot.
  • Ahern, Michael.
  • Aylward, Liam.
  • Barrett, Michael.
  • Brady, Gerard.
  • Brady, Vincent.
  • Brennan, Séamus.
  • Briscoe, Ben.
  • Burke, Raphael P.
  • Callely, Ivor.
  • Clohessy, Peadar.
  • Collins, Gerard.
  • Connolly, Ger.
  • Coughlan, Mary Theresa.
  • Cowen, Brian.
  • Cullimore, Séamus.
  • Daly, Brendan.
  • Davern, Noel.
  • Dempsey, Noel.
  • Dennehy, John.
  • de Valera, Síle.
  • Ellis, John.
  • Fahey, Frank.
  • Fitzpatrick, Dermot.
  • Flood, Chris.
  • Gallagher, Pat the Cope.
  • Harney, Mary.
  • Hillery, Brian.
  • Hilliard, Colm.
  • Hyland, Liam.
  • Jacob, Joe.
  • Kelly, Laurence.
  • Kenneally, Brendan.
  • Kirk, Séamus.
  • Kitt, Michael P.
  • Kitt, Tom.
  • Lawlor, Liam.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Leonard, Jimmy.
  • Lyons, Denis.
  • Martin, Micheál.
  • McCreevy, Charlie.
  • McDaid, Jim.
  • McEllistrim, Tom.
  • Molloy, Robert.
  • Morley, P. J.
  • Noonan, Michael J. (Limerick West).
  • O'Connell, John.
  • O'Dea, Willie.
  • O'Donoghue, John.
  • O'Hanlon, Rory.
  • O'Toole, Martin Joe.
  • Power, Seán.
  • Quill, Máirín.
  • Roche, Dick.
  • Smith, Michael.
  • Stafford, John.
  • Treacy, Noel.
  • Tunney, Jim.
  • Wallace, Dan.
  • Wilson, John P.
  • Woods, Michael.
  • Wyse, Pearse.

Níl

  • Ahearn, Therese.
  • Allen, Bernard.
  • Barnes, Monica.
  • Barrett, Seán.
  • Barry, Peter.
  • Belton, Louis J.
  • Boylan, Andrew.
  • Bradford, Paul.
  • Dukes, Alan.
  • Durkan, Bernard.
  • Enright, Thomas W.
  • FitzGerald, Garret.
  • Flaherty, Mary.
  • Flanagan, Charles.
  • Gilmore, Eamon.
  • Gregory, Tony.
  • Harte, Paddy.
  • Higgins, Michael D.
  • Hogan, Philip.
  • Howlin, Brendan.
  • Kavanagh, Liam.
  • Kenny, Enda.
  • Lee, Pat.
  • McCartan, Pat.
  • McCormack, Pádraic.
  • McGahon, Brendan.
  • Browne, John (Carlow-Kilkenny).
  • Bruton, Richard.
  • Byrne, Eric.
  • Connor, John.
  • Cotter, Bill.
  • Deenihan, Jimmy.
  • De Rossa, Proinsias.
  • Doyle, Joe.
  • McGrath, Paul.
  • Mitchell, Jim.
  • Moynihan, Michael.
  • Nealon, Ted.
  • Noonan, Michael. (Limerick East).
  • O'Keeffe, Jim.
  • O'Shea, Brian.
  • O'Sullivan, Gerry.
  • O'Sullivan, Toddy.
  • Owen, Nora.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Rabbitte, Pat.
  • Ryan, Seán.
  • Sherlock, Joe.
  • Spring, Dick.
  • Taylor-Quinn, Madeleine.
  • Timmins, Godfrey.
  • Yates, Ivan.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Dempsey and Clohessy; Níl, Deputies Flanagan and Howlin.
Question declared carried.

The Bill, as amended, is, accordingly, reported to the House. I must now ask when Report Stage will be taken.

I would like that question put to the House.

It is subject to agreement among the Whips.

I am asking that you put the question to the House.

The Deputy wants to delay the sitting even further.

Question put: "That Fourth Stage of the Bill be taken on Thursday next."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 52 52; Níl, 52.

  • Ahern, Michael.
  • Aylward, Liam.
  • Barrett, Michael.
  • Brady, Vincent.
  • Briscoe, Ben.
  • Burke, Raphael P.
  • Callely, Ivor.
  • Clohessy, Peadar.
  • Collins, Gerard.
  • Connolly, Ger.
  • Coughlan, Mary Theresa.
  • Cowen, Brian.
  • Cullimore, Séamus.
  • Daly, Brendan.
  • Davern, Noel.
  • Dempsey, Noel.
  • Dennehy, John.
  • de Valera, Síle.
  • Ellis, John.
  • Fahey, Frank.
  • Fitzpatrick, Dermot.
  • Gallagher, Pat the Cope.
  • Harney, Mary.
  • Stafford, John.
  • Treacy, Noel.
  • Tunney, Jim.
  • Hillery, Brian.
  • Hilliard, Colm.
  • Jacob, Joe.
  • Kelly, Laurence.
  • Kenneally, Brendan.
  • Kirk, Séamus.
  • Kitt, Michael P.
  • Lawlor, Liam.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Martin, Micheál.
  • McCreevy, Charlie.
  • McDaid, Jim.
  • McEllistrim, Tom.
  • Molloy, Robert.
  • Morley, P.J.
  • O'Connell, John.
  • O'Dea, Willie.
  • O'Donoghue, John.
  • O'Hanlon, Rory.
  • O'Toole, Martin Joe.
  • Quill, Máirín.
  • Roche, Dick.
  • Smith, Michael.
  • Wallace, Dan.
  • Wilson, John P.
  • Wyse, Pearse.

Níl

  • Ahearn, Therese.
  • Allen, Bernard.
  • Barnes, Monica.
  • Barrett, Seán.
  • Barry, Peter.
  • Belton, Louis J.
  • Boylan, Andrew.
  • Bradford, Paul.
  • Browne, John (Carlow-Kilkenny).
  • Bruton, Richard.
  • Byrne, Eric.
  • Connor, John.
  • Cotter, Bill.
  • Deenihan, Jimmy.
  • De Rossa, Proinsias.
  • Doyle, Joe.
  • Dukes, Alan.
  • Durkan, Bernard.
  • Enright, Thomas W.
  • FitzGerald, Garret.
  • Flaherty, Mary.
  • Flanagan, Charles.
  • Gilmore, Eamon.
  • Gregory, Tony.
  • Harte, Paddy.
  • Higgins, Michael D.
  • Hogan, Philip.
  • Howlin, Brendan.
  • Kavanagh, Liam.
  • Kenny, Enda.
  • Lee, Pat.
  • McCartan, Pat.
  • McCormack, Pádraic.
  • McGahon, Brendan.
  • McGrath, Paul.
  • Mitchell, Jim.
  • Moynihan, Michael.
  • Nealon, Ted.
  • Noonan, Michael. (Limerick East).
  • O'Keeffe, Jim.
  • O'Shea, Brian.
  • O'Sullivan, Gerry.
  • O'Sullivan, Toddy.
  • Owen, Nora.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Rabbitte, Pat.
  • Ryan, Seán.
  • Sherlock, Joe.
  • Spring, Dick.
  • Taylor-Quinn, Madeleine.
  • Timmins, Godfrey.
  • Yates, Ivan.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Dempsey and Clohessy; Níl, Deputies Flanagan and Howlin.
Report Stage ordered for Thursday, 2 July 1992.

There is an equality of votes. Pursuant to Article 15.11.2º of the Constitution I have a casting vote and I am required by the Constitution to exercise that vote. I will exercise my casting vote for the question and, accordingly, declare the question carried.

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