Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 19 Jun 1957

Vol. 48 No. 4

Public Business. - Small Dwellings Acquisition Bill, 1957—Committee and Final Stages.

Question proposed: "That Section 1 stand part of the Bill".

Dr. O'Donovan

I asked the Minister a question and the Minister said it was not relevant to the Bill. Of course, it is relevant. The question is: What part of the extra £2,000,000 which is being made available in the coming year from the Local Loans Fund will be made available for Small Dwellings Act housing? I said that if the Minister did not have the information offhand, that was all right. The Minister replied that in the conditions which existed until this Bill was introduced, a sum of only £200,000 was available. I cannot believe that the Minister understood the question since he answered it in that fashion.

Last year, Dublin County Council alone got something in the region of £1,500,000 for Small Dwellings Act houses. Therefore, the Minister's answer was not relevant to my question, whatever else it may have been relevant to. The Government in the tables issued with the Budget indicated that they were making available an additional sum of £2,000,000 from the Local Loans Fund this year. I was anxious to know how much of that would be available for Small Dwellings Act houses. I was hoping that the greater part of it would be available. There is no use in saying that, until this Bill was introduced, something in the region of £200,000 was the sum available for such houses in the current financial year. If the Minister has not the information, I have, as I say, no objection to his not being able to give it to me now. I can get it another day.

An Cathaoirleach

The Senator may be anticipating the Appropriation Bill.

Dr. O'Donovan

No. This is a Bill dealing with Small Dwellings Act housing. I have no doubt the Minister has the fullest information. The procedure is that the figures are made out in a certain way. The Minister says that the "lid is now off", so to speak. It may well be that the whole £2,000,000 will go to Small Dwellings Act housing. If that is so, so much the better, but that is an additional sum of £2,000,000. It is not a sum like the £200,000, I hope, in either respect; that is to say, in either the amount that was going to be made available before these additional moneys were made available or the amount that is made available in addition now. I sincerely hope the amount of money made available additionally will not be anything like the £200,000, any more than that small sum of £200,000 is the total sum until this Bill becomes law. I do not believe either of those statements is, in fact, correct.

Mr. Carton

Something in the region of £750,000 has been made available to Dublin County Council over the past nine or ten months. I think it may be a little more, over the £1,000,000, but certainly £200,000 is a very small amount. It is closer to £1,000,000.

Mr. O'Quigley

Arising out of the statement made by the Minister in regard to the ceiling, I think I understood from him that this ceiling would be maintained in regard to the two local authorities, Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council. My understanding of the position is that this ceiling was first imposed last year when there was a shortage of money for loans under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts and at that time the ceiling was introduced as a result of some conditions which were fixed either by the Minister for Local Government or by the Minister for Finance in making money available to the local authorities out of the Local Loans Fund.

It would seem that if the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Local Government—whoever is the appropriate authority in that regard—were to change these conditions, local authorities would be free to issue loans to people irrespective of the price of the houses. I would ask the Minister if that is not the position. If it is the position, then he ought to use his powers to ensure that the ceiling at least will be raised from £2,000 to something nearer to what would be the ordinary cost of a three-bed-roomed house in or around the City of Dublin.

Mr. Smith

I have no recollection of saying in reply to Senator O'Donovan that it was as a result of the introduction of this measure that new moneys were being made available to local bodies and private persons. I made no such statement as that. I simply said what I am going to repeat now, that my Estimate provided a sum of money for housing purposes and that when commitments already entered into in so far as operations under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts were concerned were met, the amount available to me and to my Department for the Twenty-Six Counties was £200,000. I made the further statement, which had no relation to this Bill at all, and would not have been made by me if I had not been asked the question, that, as a result of the permission given to me by the Government, I was able to inform local authorities that access to the Local Loans Fund could be resorted to by them to whatever extent, within the limits prescribed, that is, the limits of valuation and earning capacity, the public demand warranted. These statements, as I say, are statements of fact, as far as I know. They have not been made to confuse anybody and would not have been made at all, if it had not been for the fact that I was asked for information on the subject.

Dr. O'Donovan

This is just beating around the bush. My question is a perfectly straightforward question. The Government produced a White Paper in connection with the Budget saying they were making £2,000,000 additional available. I do not want to trap the Minister at all; I was just interested in knowing how much of that was money in respect of Small Dwellings Acquisition Act housing. Somebody made up the increases. You make them up by addition, by adding things together.

A Senator

It cannot be anticipated.

Dr. O'Donovan

It has nothing to do with anticipation. You add certain figures, making loans to provide small amounts for building things like vocational schools and another small amount for dispensary houses for doctors, and so on. I will answer the question myself, or make a shot at it. I would not guarantee that it will be the same answer as would come from the Minister. The previous Government, despite the restriction on money, set no limitation whatsoever in relation to moneys made available for slum clearance housing. Therefore, I take it that the slum clearance housing has been conducted to the maximum capacity of the building industry. I take it that if the present Government continued that policy, the same amount of money as last year is made available this year, and if there is not very much increase, though there might be some, for the building of vocational schools —a few of them were held up last year——

An Cathaoirleach

The Senator is going very far outside the scope of the Bill.

Dr. O'Donovan

I am attempting to indicate that my own question was one that could have been answered quite easily, if the Minister wished to answer it. If he said that he did not propose to answer it, I would not have minded too much, but he made two separate statements which had no relevance whatever to my question. I take it that the Government, if they want to make these additional moneys available, are making them available for Small Dwelling Act housing, that is, the bulk of them. That, I believe, is the position. I think it is perfectly relevant to the Bill what amount of money the Government have in mind. Of course, they have a certain amount of money in mind. We all know the way in which the Budget is prepared. I am quite satisfied that the bulk of the money is the extra £2,000,000, but I just wanted that confirmed by the Minister.

Mr. Smith

I have not had much experience of this House, but whatever experience I have had of it, I never felt that it was a place in which extravagant language was used. I did not think that it was relevant to discuss local authority housing under this Bill, but if the Senator persists in asking me a further question, I want to say that since I came in here as Minister, I have sanctioned local authority proposals to the extent of £2,000,000 that were held up since last July— £1,500,000 for housing work that was lying in the Department and for which tenders had been invited and so on, and almost a similar amount for water and sewerage.

There is no use in Senator O'Donovan, as I say, talking extravagantly here about these things. It is not my business to regulate order, and I am sure that the Cathaoirleach is sympathetic to everybody, even when a little outside the bounds of order. I did not expect that we were to have a discussion on the whole field of housing on this simple measure. Even if I were asked what amount of money is likely to be necessary to meet the small dwellings operations in the coming year, I could not answer that, but what is the need for me to answer, seeing that I have been, by a Government decision, put in a position to say to local authorities that whatever the public demand indicates is necessary will be provided for them through the Local Loans Fund? Is that not all I could be expected to say?

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 2.

Question proposed: "That Section 2 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Murphy

The Minister explained to me the purpose of Section 2, and I got the impression that there were three individuals who could appeal under the section, namely, the purchaser of the house, the builder or the county manager. I think we can cancel out the third person because, of course, an appeal lies only where a person thinks the amount allowed for a loan should be higher or greater.

Mr. Smith

Or lower.

Mr. Murphy

I can quite see that the builder would like to know what loan might be available on the house he plans to build so that he could hope for a purchaser. I have not the original 1950 Act, but I wonder would the Minister say if the builder as such would be described as "a person". It says in sub-section (2) of the section: "Where an amount has been indicated to a person..."

Mr. Smith

It could be anybody; builder, county manager, Senator or Deputy.

Mr. Murphy

But surely somebody quite unconnected with the house and with no interest whatever in it could not have the amount of the loan indicated to him by the local authority? Surely there is some form or method——

Mr. Smith

I will read out the definition handed to me which is contained in paragraph 9 of Section 32 of the Housing (Amendment) Act. It is as follows:—

"In the case of a house occupied or to be occupied for the first time, the amount which, in the opinion of the local authority, represents the reasonable cost of building the house, including so much, if any, of the legal and other expenses incidental thereto or to the acquisition of the tenement upon which the house is built or to be built, as the local authority may consider proper, but not including any fine, premium or other consideration for the acquisition of the leasehold interest in such tenement."

Mr. Murphy

Is there any reference to the "person"?

Mr. Smith

We are amending only Section 32, and it is necessary to refer to other sections for that. Section 33, I am informed, provides that the builder may apply for an indication of the market value. I was also asked questions like that in the other House and they were really covered by other sections of the 1950 Act. In this Bill we are amending only Section 32 which deals with the manner in which market value is to be determined.

Mr. Carton

The Minister used the term "market value". I thought that term was now a bygone because Section 1, if I may refer to it, eliminates even the theme of market value. To my mind, if one is to secure a valuation and keep within the terms of that section, one would need a quantity surveyor and a cost accountant. Under the system usually applied up to now the valuer took such things as local amenities into consideration and he also had at the back of his mind how much the council for whom he was operating would lose if the house had to be sold on the open market as a result of the default of the borrower.

Now, having this Bill—I should have said earlier that I welcome it—I gather that the system to be used in arriving at the value of the house is to get a quantity surveyor or a cost accountant rather than the ordinary valuer. I suggest that the word "market" should not appear anywhere, or be referred to, in this Bill because no matter how the market fluctuates, when one considers the complete house, its value will still remain in keeping with the cost of the materials used to erect it.

I noted that another Senator referred to the £2,000 maximum price of the house. The Minister should not be blamed entirely for that, because in my county council, when we went in a deputation to his predecessor, we chose the £2,000 ceiling as a means to get the greater number on the list at that time. We thought £2,000 was the normal value of a house that would ordinarily be built in the County Dublin and it is the County Dublin local authority of which I am a member. The Minister said earlier that the council decided not to go above £2,000. That is a fact, but the feeling of the council has changed since then and we hope to exceed the £2,000 in the future.

Mr. Smith

I am glad to hear it.

Question put and agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment; received for final consideration; and passed.