I move:
"That Dáil Éireann calls on the Government to restore (a) the house mortgage subsidy to single people and (b) the eligibility of single people for local authority home loans."
I want, first of all, to put this debate in the context of the decision which we made as a Government last April in the introduction of the Housing Package 1981. At that time, as Minister for the Environment, with the agreement of the Government, I announced the introduction of a scheme of measures designed to assist prospective home owners in the first three years of the repayment of their mortgages. The scheme involved the paying of a subsidy of £3,000, broken down into £1,500 in the first year, £1,000 in the second year and £500 in the third year. The payments were to be made six-monthly in arrears.
This mortgage subsidy was available at that time to a wide range of applicants — the married, single, about to be married, tenants and tenant purchasers of local authority houses who wanted to move out from their local authority houses and purchase houses in one of the private estates, and also for potential tenants of local authority houses. In that way we were anxious, as a Government, to assist couples who wished to house themselves but had no possibility of raising the necessary deposit, although being in a position to meet some of the repayments. We decided to include them in a mortgage subsidy, whether they bought new or second-hand houses. The category that this resolution in my name and that of Deputy Moore particularly refers to is the single person. Also, at that time the county council Small Dwellings Act loans were available to single people, that is the system of house purchase loans administered by the local authorities. In the Housing Package of April we also increased the eligibility limit from £5,500 to £7,000 and the loan limit to £14,000.
Through that decision in April, we have proved our commitment to the encouragement of home ownership and the encouragement of thrift. We consciously extended the mortgage subsidy to single people because they represent 22 per cent of all first-time house buyers.
That is the percentage which is affected. The Coalition Government came into power and on 23 July, the Minister for the Environment came into the House to speak on Financial Resolutions, in effect the budget. We had had the budget on the Tuesday, a series of increases announced on the Wednesday — ESB and others — and on Thursday, 23 July, the Minister for the Environment addressed the House. Amongst other measures announced that day he mentioned:
A very large proportion of the increase in the numbers of households in Ireland can be attributed to a change in the rate of formation of the household by the younger age groups rather than to changes in the size and structure of the population. Information to be published by my Department later today shows that 22 per cent of new house borrowers from all agencies in 1980 were single persons not about to marry compared to 19 per cent in 1979, 19 per cent in 1978 and 20 per cent in 1977. A high incidence of single persons not about to marry but who can afford to purchase secondhand houses is also apparent from this statistic.
This development has serious implications for the Exchequer. Clearly, some single persons could readily postpone the purchase of a house because they are adequately housed at present. In the normal course the housing needs of families must take priority. The Government have reviewed the position and have decided that there should be no change in the position relating to the special loans and mortgage subsidies available to categories such as tenants and tenant-purchasers of local authority houses who surrender their premises to the authority and one-parent families.
The following shows a pure, Victorian mentality of discrimination against single people:
In future, however, in other cases, eligibility for the mortgage subsidy and ordinary local authority house purchase loans will be restricted to married persons and persons about to marry. Single purchasers may obtain approval to the payment of a loan and mortgage subsidy but these payments will not be made until evidence of marriage is available.
In the enlightened age in which we live, various Governments have been introducing legislation to remove discrimination from our statute books. Here we have a classic example of discrimination against one section of the community — single persons. That is not just my view, or the view of Fianna Fáil. This decision made by the Minister for the Environment on 23 July resulted in the setting up of an organisation called Single Persons against Discrimination. They wrote to me in October and enclosed, for my information, a copy of a letter sent to the Taoiseach. I shall quote from that letter dated 13 October:
Dear Dr. FitzGerald,
Single Persons against Discrimination is officially launched this week. The group's formation was sparked off by your Government's decision to end the new £3,000 mortgage subsidy for single people and at the same time to exclude single people from local authority loans. The immediate objectives of the group are in the field of housing:
1. Restoration of the housing subsidy for single people and....
2. Restoration of eligibility of single people for local authority housing loans....
Discrimination against single people is endemic in Irish society. Nonetheless it was surprising that the second class status of single people was formally acknowledged by the Government in the housing subsidies decision.
That describes the decision of 23 July very well indeed. We have heard from the Taoiseach much talk of the need for crusades to remove discrimination. He said that discrimination was rife in this country. Those are not his exact words but that was the implication. Surely his bona fides have to be questioned when his own Government introduce such discriminatory regulations as these, the subject matter of the resolution before the House.
The Government amendment, which will be moved soon, refers to "those most in need — namely married people, those about to be married and special categories of borrowers" such as tenant purchasers. This amendment attempts to divide the society in which we live as to those who are married and those who are single. We in Fianna Fáil are anxious to promote and preserve the family as a unit. It is legitimate and necessary for any Government or party to work to promote and preserve the family but it should not be done by penalising single people. Why should one section of the society be penalised not for the benefit for another section but merely for the convenience of the book-keeping of the Government, to which I will come back later?
Through employment regulations relating to women in the workplace, regulations for family home protection and recognising the rights of both spouses, and various other reform measures, all parties in Government have attempted to remove discrimination from the Statute Book. Yet here, in their first days in Government, the Minister for the Environment of this administration introduces this unheard of level of discrimination, the effect of which is to remove from 22 per cent of first-time house buyers the eligibility for this mortgage subsidy of £3,000. Surely the Government should be doing all in their power to encourage home ownership by people, married or single. They should be encouraging thrift and investment in homes. There is a suggestion in the Minister's attitude that all single people who want to buy houses are in the 21, 22 and 23 age bracket. Many single people who are more settled in years have been in touch with me on this issue. They have decided, for their own reasons, that they do not intend to marry but are anxious to set up their own homes. They have been very badly treated by this Government and they will not forget this discrimination.
I glanced at the Coalition programme on housing today to see if there was any suggestion that this Government would discriminate against single people when they got into power. There was no such suggestion. They said that they would assist house purchase through a variety of schemes, including a no deposit shared housing scheme for local authority tenants and those on housing lists, implementation of the £4,000 grant scheme for first-time buyers up to a house value of £40,000, pay-related mortgages of up to four times a person's income through a housing agent, top up loans to bridge the gap between the deposit and the amount saved for those getting loans from building societies, a purchase and lease back scheme for the elderly, an additional £1,000 for first-time Gaeltacht purchasers, measures to enable householders to ensure against redundancy and special aids for co-operatives and so on.
There is nothing in that policy to indicate that within three weeks of forming a Government the Coalition intended to remove from single people the mortgage subsidy and their eligibility for SDA loans. My colleagues on this side of the House will be speaking about this in greater detail so I will leave the main thrust of it to them. I also looked through the programme to see if there was any indication of an intention to discriminate under the heading of justice and law reform. But there was nothing there either. I thought that there might be some question in the programme of discriminating in regard to income taxation. The one thing that I found was mention of taxation and equity. Where is the equity in discriminating against single people in the manner in which they have in this decision of July last?
In their amendment the Government refer to the inadequate provision for the mortgage subsidy. The reality is that the subsidy was introduced in April, it would have been May before it could have been put into operation and most of the loan applications would not have been closed until June or July. Loan payments are made six months in arrears, so payments would be coming due only now. Perhaps a few would have been due in November.
Therefore, to talk about inadequate provision is, to say the least of it, less than honest. The provision for the main scheme would have to be made in 1982 and if we were in Government we would have made that provision and all of those originally included, married and single, would have been catered for. Reference to inadequate funds for SDA purchases is something of a sick joke when it comes from a Government who between 1973 and 1977 never increased the SDA qualifying income limit. In our time in office we increased it four or five times.
Fianna Fáil have always taken the construction industry and the purchase of homes as being a very important item of Government policy. This does not appear to be the view of the present Government and this was further confirmed in the infamous speech of 23 July when the Minister for the Environment removed the mortgage subsidy. That Minister tonight has been speaking at the formal opening of the EBS premises in Westmoreland Street. He referred there to the importance of housing in all its many aspects. He referred to the important role of the building societies and said he recognised that role and the efforts of the societies through loans.
We in Government recognised the importance of a cash flow to the building societies. We appreciated that they would have to increase their deposit rates to encourage the inflow of funds at a time when their competitors, the banks and other agencies, were increasing their interest rates. We also realised that mortgage holders would have to be protected against savage repayments and for that reason we decided, when in Government, to subsidise interest rates. But on 23 July, the Minister for the Environment removed that subsidy. What has been the outcome? When we left office on 30 June last, mortgage holders were paying 13.15 per cent as a result of our subsidy. Now they are paying 16.25 per cent as a result of the decision of the Government to remove the subsidy. That speech of 23 July totally reneged, after three weeks in office, on commitments in both the Fine Gael and the Gaiety Theatre documents.
This morning a Bill was circulated to set up a housing finance agency. The Bill is purely an enabling measure to set up the agency, and it waffles on without going into detail. During the weekend a Fine Gael backbencher spoke at a meeting of the group called Single Persons Against Discrimination. I assumed he was speaking with Government approval when he said that loans would be available for single people through this agency. I should like to get confirmation of that from the Minister when he is speaking on his amendment. Was everything the Deputy said correct? If loans are to become available, and I hope they will be, it would be meeting one part of our motion in regard to SDA loans but it will not meet the other important part of our motion calling for the restoration of the housing mortgage subsidy to single people.
It is not my intention to hang my case on the unemployment situation and the effect it will have on the building industry or the effect the removal of the mortgage subsidy for single people must have had on the construction industry because of its effect on new house purchases. It is no secret that the building trade are going through the worst time in their history. It is a cliché, but it is true, that the health of the construction industry is a barometer of the health of the economy generally. Today's figures of the unemployment situation show that there are about 134,000 people out of work, many of them in the construction industry. At such a time it is surely the responsibility of the Government to adopt the approach in this motion and not to try to hide behind their amendment which states that the Government were compelled to confine house purchase loans and the mortgage subsidy to those most in need. Why divide society? We have enough division on this island without further dividing the married from the single.
I appeal for the support of all Deputies on this issue. Many Fine Gael Deputies have been speaking outside the House regarding discrimination, the role of single people, the protection of citizens' rights, about discrimination at all levels. I appeal to all of them to recognise by voting in support of this motion that the Fianna Fáil proposal is correct and appropriate at this time.
In particular I appeal to the Independent Members of this House for their support for this motion. A number of them have been vocal against discrimination of all types, and the need to remove discrimination from our society with which I heartily agree. Tomorrow night when we have a vote on this motion, as it appears we will have because the Government have put down an amendment, I appeal to the Independent Members to walk through the lobby with Fianna Fáil and support this motion which attempts to remove discrimination from one area, the regulations of the Government. Some of the Independent Members are noted, and even noted by themselves, for their stand against discrimination in all its forms. Tomorrow night they will have an opportunity to show in a concrete fashion just how sincere they are in their claim to be opposed to discrimination.
I have concentrated on paragraph (a) of the motion which refers to the mortgage subsidy to single people. My colleague Deputy Callanan and others will speak at greater length on the eligibility of single people for local authority home loans. The Government's administrative decision to put together the two incomes of married couples is having a shattering effect on the construction industry and building jobs. Every time we mention housing the Government throw around the figure of £15 million which was supposed to be the great saving in the local authority house construction sector for 1981, totally disregarding everything else done by the Fianna Fáil Government.
Government speakers have put great emphasis on this £15 million. Rather than trotting out that old chestnut, when the Minister moves his amendment he should answer the legitimate charge of discrimination against the Government. The Minister of State is guilty of being a junior member of a Government whose Cabinet have decided to introduce a further level of discrimination into our society. The Government are led by a Taoiseach who parades himself and calls for crusades against discrimination in all forms. We regret that the Government have introduced this new level of discrimination.
The Minister may not be aware of a letter addressed to Dr. Garret FitzGerald, Dáil Éireann, dated October 13, 1981. I was sent a copy by the lady who signed the letter, Miss Bernadette Marsh, Chairman of Single Persons Against Discrimination. I will quote the last two paragraphs:
S.P.A.D. awaits, with interest, to hear whether the recently announced pay-related mortgage scheme with an upper income limit of £9,000 will apply to single people.
This is the enabling Bill about which I spoke earlier. The letter goes on:
The majority of single people in the country would be eligible on an income basis and the scheme would be of great assistance to them. However, when Mr. Barry has done his sums, perhaps we will again be told that "single people don't need housing".
I look forward to hearing what the Government plans to do for single people and would remind you that single people have votes. At the next general election, a candidate representing the interests of single people may stand in a constituency such as your own, Dublin South-East, where there are large numbers of single people of all ages.
I would ask the Minister and the Government to reflect on that cautionary note as expressed by Miss Marsh on behalf of members of Single Persons Against Discrimination. The only word to describe the decision of 23 July announced by the Minister is discrimination. I would ask the Minister to please accept our motion.