(Cavan-Monaghan): We have now reached the fifth of the Supplementary Estimates having discussed them since 3.30. Between now and 6.30 we have to deal with 19 further Supplementary Estimates. I would like to go on record as protesting against the manner in which the Government have ordered their business which results in something like 24 Supplementary Estimates having to be dealt with in three hours in the dying days of 1978. It is not good enough. If the Dáil needs more time it should sit more time. If longer sitting hours are necessary the Dáil should have longer sitting hours. I do not propose to go further into it than that but I would not be discharging my duty if I did not publicly say that I think it is a disgraceful way to vote finances for the Departments of State and to deal with the performance of the Departments of State.
Having said that, I do not want to find myself in trouble with the Chair, but the fact that we are voting an additional sum of £410,000 for salaries, wages and allowances to the Minister does broaden the scope of this Supplementary Estimate fairly extensively.
I do not propose to go into any of the matters in the Minister's Department at great length because I simply have not the time to do it. But there are a few things I want to speak about. I want to speak about housing and I want to put it on the record of the House that people who are in search of houses of their own have reached the stage now when they find it just impossible to provide themselves with a house. I know that since this Government came into office a grant of £1,000 has been provided for a person who has not previously built or bought a house. I suggest that, having regard to the very substantial increase—approximately 33? per cent —in the price of houses and in the price of building houses since this Government came into office, the £1,000 grant has faded into utter insignificance. Something will have to be done to encourage and to make it possible for young married couples to have a house of their own. The day was when young people were prepared to move into flats, make-do flats, which were not built for that purpose and put up with them for some time. But a young woman usually found that if she moved into a flat she was left there much longer than she wished and young people are not prepared to embark on matrimony now unless they can provide a proper house for themselves. It is the duty of the Government, and particularly this Government who undertook on their going into office to make it easier to own a house and cheaper to keep it, to do something about it.
Having regard to the fact that the price of houses has jumped by 33? per cent the Minister and the Government will have to provide more local authority houses instead of less because people who are earning £3,500 simply cannot provide a house of their own. It is simply not possible for them to finance a loan of £12,000, £13,000, £14,000 or even £9,000, and we must face up to that reality.
I regret to note that it is the policy of the Government, as appears from their various publications—white paper, green paper and other pronouncements—to look very critically at applicants for local authority houses and in that way pressurise people into building their own houses. People can only build their own houses if they have enough money to do it. The building societies' loans have dried up. I know that is a fact and it cannot be disputed. The conditions under which the building societies will advance money have tightened up and have become much more restrictive. It used to be that if a person had money on deposit for six months they would qualify for consideration by the building society for a loan but that time was extended, as we know, to 12 months and I think it is now at two years.
Furthermore if a person can qualify for a local authority housing loan now, the interest rate is at an all-time high; it stands at 14.15 per cent. That is a brutal rate of interest to ask any people of modest means to pay. What can the Government do about it? I believe that the Minister has a ready-made instrument by which he could assist people who want to build houses and that is the small dwellings loan fund. I am quite aware of the fact that the Minister has increased the local authority loan to £9,000 and I will go further and say that he increased it twice since he came into power; it now stands at £9,000. But there is an income ceiling limit of £3,500 which makes a complete farce of the whole thing. The loans are there but one cannot qualify for them. Anybody earning more than between £60 and £70 a week will not be entertained and that is simply offering a loan but making it impossible to qualify for it. Therefore, I want to call on the Minister to increase the loans from £9,000 to a more realistic figure and to increase the income limit to a realistic figure because it is not a realistic figure at the moment. The Minister knows, and I know, and anybody who stops to think, knows that a person earning between £60 and £70 a week simply cannot finance a loan of £9,000, cannot build a house of his own. The Government undertook to control prices and I assume that included the price of houses. The price of houses has jumped out of all recognition by 33? per cent and it is still rising, though maybe not as drastically as it was.