The purpose of this short Bill is to facilitate the National Building Agency in raising the capital money needed to finance their expanding programme of housing for industry.
The need for this housing and the lack of any other organisation to meet it effectively were the main reasons why the agency was established as a company in 1960. The provision of proper accommodation for workers in industry remains an important function of the agency.
The agency were put on a statutory basis by the National Building Agency Limited Act, 1963. Section 6 of that Act provided for the making of repayable advances to the agency by the Minister for Finance, and section 7 for guarantees by the Minister of moneys borrowed by it. The latter power has not so far been used. Section 9 of the 1963 Act put a limit of £2 million on the aggregate of borrowings or guarantees. This limit was increased to £5 million by the National Building Agency Limited (Amendment) Act, 1969. The present Bill proposes to extend the limit to £15 million.
The increase of £10 million is needed to finance an expansion of the programme from the annual average of about 150 industrial houses over the past five years to an output of about 600 dwellings in each of the next five years.
The Bill was generally welcomed in the Lower House, where a helpful debate raised some important matters directly connected with the purposes of the Bill. Concern was expressed, for example, at the drabness and lack of variety of many housing schemes — a complaint which could fairly be levelled at many private and public schemes besides those built by the agency. Deputies also echoed criticisms in Press reports of alleged defects in some agency schemes.
I should like to avail of this opportunity to assure Members of this House that I am very much alive to the need for improvement in the environmental aspects of housing schemes generally. I have told the agency to pay particular attention to securing the best practicable environment when planning and constructing their future schemes. I know also that some houses provided by the agency — particularly those built under the "low-cost" housing project — suffered from the skimping of space and materials which naturally resulted from a policy insisting on maximum economy in construction. Other schemes have shown signs of inadequate supervision. I hope that, as a result of my directions to the agency and of the augmentation of their board of directors by new members having special experience of housing, such inadequacies will not be evident in future schemes.
The possibility of financing the operations of the agency by means other than Exchequer advances was also raised in the Dáil. It was suggested for instance that use might be made of an issue of bonds for the purpose. I do not exclude this or other possible ways of raising capital, but I must point out that if the agency issued such bonds they would either be competing with national loans and with other public bodies for a limited pool of special investment funds or else would have to pay the going interest rates for normal lending-rates which are presently much higher than those on advances from the Local Loans Fund.
The present arrangement, under which the agency participate in an orderly way in the public capital programme, has much to commend it. The agency have built a total of 1,398 houses for industry to date. They have work in progress on more than 450 houses and schemes in planning comprising more than 1,000 houses. Almost all these houses are being provided for specific industries or for industrial employees nominated by industry or by the Industrial Development Authority.
The programme is developed in close consultation with the authority and with the local housing authorities under the general co-ordination of my Department. The main areas which will benefit from expansion of the agency's industrial housing activities in the next five years are Galway city and county, where 130 houses a year are to be built; County Donegal, where a total of 274 houses are planned; County Limerick, where 200 houses will be needed; County Mayo, where up to 1,000 houses may be required as a result of the establishment of major new industries, and County Cork, where about 500 industrial houses may be needed. More than 30 areas throughout the country have been identified where houses may be needed for industrial purposes in the next five years.
Appreciating the importance of this programme to the industrial growth and expansion and the well being of our general economy. I know that this House will welcome the Bill.