This matter involves hardship for two families. It may affect other families also, but these are two specific cases where the mortgage interest supplement is being denied and where both families, who are now affected by unemployment, find they cannot meet their mortgages. When the contracts were signed one or both of the partners in these families was working. However, between the stage of signing the contracts and collecting the key of the house they became unemployed. They are now being denied this supplement because the authorities refuse to give the supplement to people who were unemployed at the time they took on the responsibility of buying their homes. That is the rule according to the health board, but these people were not unemployed when they took on the responsibility. They signed contracts at a time when they were in employment and did not foresee any unemployment situation arising.
These families will be destroyed if we cannot overrule this nonsensical bureaucracy. It will also put them back on the housing list, where they will be provided with accommodation at enormous cost to the taxpayer. It is likely that at some stage in the future one or both of these families will regain employment. The treatment of these families shows a great deal of inhumanity on the part of those who have made this decision.
One of these families is from Drimnagh and the other is from Crumlin. In the case of the first family, they pay a mortgage of £207 per month but are now receiving unemployment assistance of only £116 per week. The husband in this case worked until May 1993 and received final approval from Dublin Corporation for the purchase of this house the previous month on 27 April. It is a shared ownership scheme, but he did not collect the keys to the house until a month after he became unemployed. Despite the fact that he had entered into a contract, the health board is now saying that he is not entitled to the supplement.
The second case involves a couple who are not married; they are common law husband and wife. The letter from the health board refers to them both, but a previous reference to the case which I raised here by way of parliamentary question referred only to the lady concerned. The man in this case was working when they both signed the contracts; but, again, when they received the keys the man had become unemployed. They have an endowment policy loan on which the repayments are £310 per month.
Both of these families are now facing ruin because of a technicality. I am asking the Minister to put a stop to this nonsense. At the end of the day it will cost the State more, in addition to the terrible trauma that will be caused to these families. If they have to give up their homes in Drimnagh and Crumlin, respectively, the only place they can be accommodated by the local authority is in Tallaght or some area where there are houses available at present. That would mean taking their children out of the community, enrolling them in new schools, losing the deposit which they sacrificed everything to put together as well as the repayments they have made so far. If they could be given a little help to get over this difficulty they would eventually be able to fend for themselves.
In both these cases the families are self-starters. They did not seek to be housed by the city because they were aware of the difficult housing situation. Both of them are from ordinary Dublin working class families and they made great sacrifices to put together a deposit for a house. They now find that everything they have is being thrown to one side by what I consider to be an outrageously bureaucratic interpretation of the rules.
It is our job, not just to raise taxes and legislate. This is a House of Representatives, and the overall Government and its agencies are accountable. In this case the Eastern Health Board has gone too far. The Minister should advise them that for the sake of both these families and others like them, the rules should not be adhered to in this rigid, technical manner. It would be different if they had been unemployed all the time and had taken on this responsibility against the advice given to them but that is not the case. In both cases they were employed at the time of signature of the contract.
I hope the Minister will be in a position not just to inform me of the view of her Department and the Eastern Health Board but to review these two cases and direct that these two families are assisted.
