I will be as brief as I can. The House has heard the difficulties of the Minister in trying to allocate moneys to areas of need throughout the country. I want to relate to this House a story of a local authority that has difficulty accepting money because of their internal managerial problems which have been aggravated severely by the failure of this Government to make adequate provision to that authority to provide a valuation service that would enable them to provide quotations to corporation tenants who have applied to purchase their flats. The injustice to which I refer is that people are now paying maximum rents in local authority flats which are in excess of what they would pay if they were making mortgage repayments plus, probably, a service charge, if we knew what that service charge was.
My concern is that of the 13,000 flats in Dublin Corporation's estate, most recent figures suggest that in excess of 1,300 have applied to purchase those flats and I am aware that that figure is probably higher as of now. Certainly in my constituency of Dublin south-east my own calculations would suggest that some 400 and 500 applications have been made to purchase flats and that would cover up to 2,000 people. They are being denied the right to purchase their home under the sales scheme that was introduced by the current Minister, because of unwarranted and totally unnecessary delays in the department of housing within Dublin Corporation. The answer that has been given to me by the people in Dublin Corporation is that they simply cannot do the job because of the backlog of applications and the shortage of skilled professional staff. It appears that each applicant's dwelling has to be individually valued by the valuer or member of his staff and that the sheer logistics of this task will result in no corporation flat applicant being looked at until 31 March and that offers will only begin to be made after 31 March.
In reality between the making of an offer and its acceptance and the consequential processing of that paper until such time as somebody on the maximum differential rent in a local authority flat transfers to a mortgage there can be a time-lag of six to nine months at least, if one is lucky. In the course of all of that time people who would otherwise be getting income tax relief on that portion of the mortgage which would be eligible for such relief will find they are paying in excess by way of differential rent of what they would otherwise pay and on which they get no tax relief. I regard that as unjust and I am here to ask the Minister what course of action he is prepared to take to remove this injustice to my constituents and indeed to other local authority tenants in the Dublin area. I am unashamedly talking about a particular problem, in a particular area.
I suggest, because I do not need to elaborate the point I have made, that the injustice speaks for itself and the Minister is sufficiently well briefed with the facts to concur with what I describe as being an accurate presentation of the situation that exists at the moment. As many of these people want to buy their flats outright and there will be large sums of money coming into the local authority, it would not be unreasonable, in order to obviate what would clearly be a financial disadvantage to them if the sales scheme is prolonged, for the local authority to be empowered or directed to take on, on a contract basis for such time as is necessary, the necessary professionally skilled valuers or whoever is required, working to the terms and conditions laid down by the Chief Valuer in Dublin Corporation and in a manner that would enable every applicant to Dublin Corporation who lives in a flat to get a quotation as quickly as possible. The cost would be paid for out of the rapid draw-down of proceeds which would follow from that. That is really what I am saying. We would avoid the problems that will result if people have to wait another 12 months to have their mortgage documents signed and get their tax entitlement. The Minister should bring forward the scheme and allow the people who want to buy their flats to do so without any further delay and by using the resources that will come from the proceeds of the sales, the local authority would be enabled to hire the additional staff to complete the job.
