asked the Minister for Local Government if he proposes to increase new house and housing reconstruction grants.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - House Grants.
27.
I have no such proposal under consideration at present. The amount of capital provided for housing has increased from £46 million in 1972-73 to over £116 million in 1976. The need to control the growth of public expenditure applies to housing as well as to other priority services. I cannot, therefore, commit myself to increasing the existing levels of housing grants.
Would the Minister agree that with the cost of house building and house reconstruction at the present time the grants being paid are completely unrealistic?
Deputy Callanan said last year that they would not pay for the nails for a house. That is a bit of an exaggeration but they do not seem to be so terribly important with regard to house building now as they were. It is not possible to raise them to represent the percentage they were when they were first introduced. I have no proposal to increase them in the future.
Would the Minister agree that with the cost of new house building it is more important than ever that houses that are suitable for reconstruction would be reconstructed and that the grant of £200 is completely unrealistic for reconstruction?
I have good news for Deputy Leonard. The number of houses being reconstructed is going up and up. In 1971, 9,000 grants were allocated and 7,000 paid; in 1972, 9,000 were allocated and 8,000 were paid; in 1973, 10,000 were allocated and 9,000 paid; in 1974, 11,800 were allocated and 8,500 paid; in 1975, 12,514 were allocated and 10,162 paid. In January-September, 1975, 9,054 were allocated and 7,569 paid. In this year 11,077 were allocated and 10,678 paid. People are reconstructing their houses. In the circumstances they feel they are doing reasonably well.
People are unable to meet the cost of new houses and they have to reconstruct houses which would not have been reconstructed years ago.
Is it not great that they are doing that and bringing their houses up to date? We are all preaching about retaining the housing stock and I am glad to see we are having an effect.
The Minister quoted me as speaking about nails. They will have to buy the nails. I would ask the Minister seriously to consider that, with the amount of money made available for private people to build their own houses, it just is not on, and they are all looking to the local authorities to build their houses. If loans and grants were increased, this would take a big load off the local authorities.
The local authorities have long lists of people who have been waiting for houses. We are trying to deal with that list. The biggest trouble is here in this city. Last year I gave an extra £11 million, £12.7 million to £23.7 million, for Dublin city because I felt there was a big need for it. It is ridiculous to say we are building houses for people who would build their own houses if the grants were higher. We are providing the money. When that backlog is dealt with perhaps there might be another approach. Plenty of money is being allocated by building societies. This year they propose to give £85 million as against £43 million given three years ago. There is plenty of money for people who really want to build their own houses.
Surely the Minister is aware that the interest rates of building societies go up periodically and people on small incomes are afraid to borrow from the building societies. Anyway, they would not get the money.
The money is being borrowed anyway. Houses are being built for people on low incomes.