Vol. 423 No. 8
6 Mr. Dukes asked the Minister for the Environment the number of local authority dwelling units which will be started and which will be completed in 1992; the number of housing starts which have been sanctioned so far this year; and the number of units which have been completed so far this year.
It is not possible, at this stage, to provide definitive information on the number of local authority dwellings which will be started and completed in 1992. The indications are, however, that some 1,300 starts and some 1,500 completions, including acquisitions, will be achieved.
The capital provision for the 1992 local authority house construction programme provides for 1,000 new "starts", and, in addition, caters for some 550 houses which were approved to commence in 1991 but which local authorities did not get to construction stage by the end of that year.
Returns on their housing operations, including the house construction programme, are made by local authorities on a quarterly basis. The latest complete return in relation to housing completions has been published in the Housing Statistics Bulletin, June Quarter 1992, copies of which are in the Oireachtas Library. This indicates that 530 completions had been achieved by the end of June, 1992.
Is the Minister seriously telling me that although these returns are made on a quarterly basis, he cannot give us any more information than is available for the first half of the year? If in the first half of the year 530 houses have been completed, how do the Government expect that 1,500 will be completed for the rest of this year?
I am satisfied that the targets set will be achieved during the year.
I am not asking the Minister whether or not he is satisfied. If 530 houses were completed in the first half of the year how does the Minister pretend that 1,000 houses will be completed in the second half of the year? How can the Minister pretend that, and then tell me that he has not got any up-to-date information? Is the Minister not just bluffing on this?
I am satisfied that the target set will be achieved. Five hundred and fifty houses have come over from last year and I am satisfied that the targets for this year will be met by the local authorities.
A Cheann Comhairle——
We must move on to another question. I am sure Deputy Dukes will appreciate the need to have regard to the time factor.
If we find that completions this year are equivalent only to the number of houses held over since last year then it is clear that the programme is not making any progress. Will the Minister agree that it is a very strange situation when less than one-third of the total capital allocation for local authority housing this year is being made available directly by the Government—£18.5 million out of a total of £41.5 million? The local authorities are actually providing the bulk of this from there own capital resources. Would the Minister agree that 1,500 houses, even if we reach that, is a very small figure when we find one local authority—I am referring to Dublin Corporation—saying that 90 per cent of their housing applicants, the people who will have to be housed out of these 1,500 that will be completed, have estimated gross incomes of less than £8,000 per annum and over 80 per cent of those people have incomes of less than £6,000 per annum? Will the Minister agree that even if we reach his targets for this year, which I seriously doubt, this programme is only a flea bite compared to the total needs?
We are dwelling over long on this to the detriment of the remaining questions.
There are not enough people dwelling on it.
It is incorrect to give the impression that we will have 1,500 houses this year. The total number available will be roughly 6,200 houses and roughly that number of people will be accommodated in houses this year. If the Deputy wishes I can outline the figures for him.
