asked the Minister for the Environment with regard to applicants for the £5,000 new house grant scheme who were originally sanctioned for same and subsequently disallowed because the house they purchased was not the one originally specified, if he will agree to reconsider this situation with a view to allowing the grant in those cases.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Grant Payments.
15.
The provisional approval issued to applicants in respect of the £5,000 surrender grant relates to the building or purchase of a particular house. Where the purchase or construction of that house is not being proceeded with, an application for the grant in respect of a different house can be considered only where the applicants satisfy the relevant local authority that, at the time of abolition of the scheme, they had, on foot of a legitimate expectation of receiving the grant, entered into a legally binding and irrevocable commitment in respect of the second house. A grant cannot be allowed for a house in respect of the purchase of which provisional approval had not issued or a binding commitment had not existed when the grants scheme was terminated.
Surely if an applicant who had applied before the closing date merely decided by choice or circumstance to change from the house to which he intended buying to another house, that ought not to be regarded as altering the validity of his application?
I can appreciate the Deputy's concern in the matter but approval was issued in respect of a specific house only and it cannot be transferred to another house. That was the arrangement that was entered into when the grant approval issued in the first instance. It would not be possible to allow grants to persons who had no qualifying commitment at the time of the abolition.
I think the Minister perhaps misunderstands the purpose of the grant scheme. Indeed that is somewhat apparent in the manner in which he abolished it. Is the Minister not aware that the grant scheme was designed primarily to encourage people to return their local authority houses to the housing stock on the basis that they were purchasing a replacement dwelling from the private sector and that once the applicant was fulfilling that primary purpose was it not reasonable that if the applicant choose to purchase a different private sector house and had qualified for the grant in the first instance that this qualification should pass on to his second choice of house?
The Deputy understands full well what was intended by way of the £5,000 surrender grant and it is because it was serving no further useful purpose that the Minister abolished it. It must be understood by everybody that when somebody applied for that £5,000 surrender grant they did so on the understanding that they were surrendering a house that was in good repair or that had been put in good repair and that they had obtained agreement and approval in respect of the house they proposed to purchase before the approval went out from the local authority. So there can be no question of anybody having been under any misapprehension about what they were entitled to. Two houses were in question, their own and the one they proposed to buy and it was on foot of that application with details of those houses that the grant approval issued. Accordingly, all those applications that have been approved and concluded will be paid.
Could the Minister adopt a more lenient approach in a matter such as this where, surely, the former tenant in the local authority house who is surrendering was acting in good faith and could not be expected to anticipate the major change the Government introduced? In view of the circumstances in which the announcement of the change was made I would appeal to the Minister to deal leniently with the people who were caught in the intervening period. The circumstances in this case would clearly be crying out for a sympathetic response from a person in the Minister's position. I accept that regulations are made by the Minister and that, therefore, only the Minister would be in a position to adjudicate or make alterations to allow exceptional cases such as this to qualify.
I stated in the reply that if there was legitimate expectation by an applicant of a grant and if they had entered into that kind of irrevocable commitment, I would be happy to look at any particular case the Deputy might send forward.