I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
The purpose of the Bill is to increase from £5 million to £15 million the limit on advances and borrowing guarantees which the National Building Agency may have obtained at any time for industrial housing purposes.
The National Building Agency was set up in 1960 as a company under the Companies Acts with the primary object of facilitating industrial expansion by the provision of houses and ancillary services where this need could not be met appropriately by local authorities or was not being catered for by private enterprise. It was placed on a statutory basis by the National Building Agency Limited Act, 1963. The scope of the agency's activities was extended two years later to cover any housing or related operations which the Minister for Local Government might assign to it from time to time.
The work of the agency now falls into three broad categories — the provision of housing and ancillary services related to industrial expansion, the provision of houses for State employees whose duties involve them in occasional transfers of residence and housing operations undertaken on behalf of local authorities. This Bill is concerned with the first of these categories only.
The agency's operations in the provision of housing and ancillary services related to industrial expansion are financed by repayable advances made by the Minister for Finance under section 6 of the 1963 Act. Provision is also made in section 7 of the 1963 Act for the Minister for Local Government to guarantee moneys borrowed for this purpose by the agency. Under section 9 of the 1963 Act, as amended by the National Building Agency Limited (Amendment) Act, 1969, the aggregate at any time of advances and guaranteed borrowings obtained by the agency and still unrepaid may not exceed £5 million. No guarantee has yet been given under section 7 of the 1963 Act but over £4.5 million has been advanced to the agency under section 6.
The accounts of the agency are laid before each House of the Oireachtas. The agency's industrial housing service is comprehensive and extends to the acquisition of land, the design and planning of the scheme and the financing and construction of the houses. Within broad policy outlines determined by the Minister for Local Government, industrial housing is provided by the agency in consultation with the various Departments concerned, the Industrial Development Authority and the local authority. Normally the dwellings are provided at the request of individual industries and are financed by way of mortgage loans granted by the agency either to the firms or to nominated individual employees and by the usual State and local grants. A small proportion of houses are provided for letting.
The agency, to the order of the Industrial Development Authority, also provide industrial housing on a more general basis related to the anticipated growth of industry as a whole in an area rather than for specific industries. Houses built by them, in association with the local authorities for letting to key workers in new or expanding industry qualify for a subsidy of two-thirds of loan charges.
The agency built a total of 1,398 houses for industrial workers up to 31st December, 1973, and at that date, work was in progress on a further 456 houses, with schemes comprising 1,015 industrial houses at the planning stage. Information available to the agency from the Industrial Development Authority indicates that the rate of industrial expansion will require a substantial increase in the numbers of industrial houses required in the next five years.
Experience has shown that an adequate and planned programme of housing for key industrial workers is vital to the success of any programme of industrial expansion. In this connection, my Department, the Industrial Development Authority and the agency have maintained close liaison in the matter of assessing industrial housing needs. More than 30 towns throughout the country have been identified in which industrial housing needs, aggregating over 1,350 houses may arise in the next five years. Major industrial developments are anticipated in a few other centres which could require over 500 houses between them. The estimated cost of providing a programme of this order would be approximately £10 million. As I have said, the agency's present statutory limit of indebtedness has been reached and it is now necessary to increase it by £10 million to enable the agency's industrial housing programme to proceed. I commend the Bill to the House.