asked the Minister for the Environment if he will seek powers to obtain the information referred to in parliamentary questions Nos. 988, 989, 991 and 992 of 26 May 1982 on a regular basis from local authorities in view of the basic need that exists to allocate housing expenditure on the basis of statistically attested need.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Housing Expenditure.
13.
Local authorities submit to my Department annually detailed returns setting out the number of approved applications for local authority housing, giving details of family size and the reason for their approval such as overcrowding, living in unfit conditions, medical grounds and so on. This information enables my Department to examine the comparative urgency of need as between the various housing authorities for capital allocation purposes. The further breakdown suggested by the Deputy is not considered necessary for these purposes and I do not propose to ask local authorities to supply it.
Will the Minister agree that while he does not like the process, the Department do not give the money for local authority house building, the responsibility falls on this House? Will the Minister agree that in those circumstances he has given the most utter undemocratic reply to a legitimate question from a public representative? Will the Minister agree that his officials have just said, in effect, that he will get the information privately from local authorities, will look at it in private in the Custom House, will allocate priorities in private in his office and will then come before the Oireachtas and ask us in public to vote moneys for something which has been evaluated in private? In effect is that what the Minister is saying?
The Deputy may not be aware of the procedures laid down.
That is why the question is on the Order Paper.
The Minister, and the Government, allocate moneys according to the need of each local authority. It is a matter for each local authority to allocate that money to housing schemes that need the go ahead. That is the situation. I am pleased with the way local authorities and corporations have allocated the money for housing and the schemes they have carried out. The only problem I have come up against is that I do not have sufficient money to give to local authorities.
I do not wish to get involved in a debate with the Minister of State about the merits or demerits of spending more money on housing. That is not the point of the question. If Department officials in private can get the information from local authorities upon which they assign a scheme of priorities for the allocation of capital can that information be made available to public representatives in the House? The Minister must agree that in the course of his reply he has conceded that that information is available from local authorities to the Department and I am anxious to know why it cannot be made available at least once a year to Members. This information was refused to Deputy Michael Higgins on the grounds that it was not available in the first instance.
I am following procedures laid down for many years. That procedure was adopted by my predecessors. Local authorities submit to me annually detailed returns and the number of applications.
I apologise for pressing this matter but I am sure the Chair will agree that the rights of Members to ask questions and obtain information from Ministers is the point at issue here, not the actual content of the information. Did I understand the Minister to say that as a result of procedures adopted by former Ministers he, the person with specific responsibility, is going to deny this information to public representatives?
I am not denying anything to public representatives and I never did.
The Minister has just done so.
I am not going to ask officials in my Department to go through all that. I am not willing to ask local authorities to devote time — it would take a lot of time to compile this information — to collecting that information. There has been a lot of abuse of such matters here and we are all aware of the comments in the media about the cost of replying to questions. When I saw the state of local authority housing when I came to office I asked the Minister to allocate more money for local authority housing. I am interested in building houses and giving local authorities money to do so and I do not want to get into little fiddle-dee-dee matters.
We must move on to the next question. Deputy Quinn has asked seven supplementaries.
I wish to ask a final supplementary. This is not a fiddle-dee-dee matter. In his reply the Minister has conceded in the substance, if one blows away the smoke, that the information is made available once a year to his Department.
Yes.
I should like to ask the Minister of State, on behalf of Members, to make that information available to Members.
I will have a look at that matter.