Housing shortage a cause for concern

HOUSE prices attracted headlines in 1980 but the concern at that time was the scarcity rather than glut of available properties.

Environment Minister, Sylvester Barrett, was pushing the Government for £30 million over and above his budgetary allocation for social housing, warning that building couldn’t keep up with demand.

Demand was so high, he pointed out, that new house prices had “virtually doubled” between 1977 and 1979 and he warned of serious consequences if he didn’t get the extra allocation.

“The number of houses to be completed in 1982 and 1983 will be lower than in any year since 1972, there will be growing unemployment in the building and associated industries and widespread unrest amongst persons who have arranged to purchase or improve houses with the aid of grants and with loans under the local authorities house purchase and improvement loans schemes.”

Minister for Finance, Michael O’Kennedy, wasn’t impressed with his argument, however, pointing out that all departments had been warned that the scope for additional allocations this year was “practically nil”.

“Despite this, the policy of the Minister for the Environment appears to be to challenge all of the main budgetary allocations within his department’s ambit.”

Officials in the Taoiseach’s department were meanwhile observing the row between the two departments and asking questions about whether there was any justification for continuing with the home improvement grant. The number of grants had shot up from 11,000 in 1977 to 30,000 in 1979 and the cost had risen from £7 million in 1978 to £35m in 1980, which was described as “alarming”.

“With so much money involved, it would seem reasonable to enquire why a person should be paid to improve his own house — any more than he should be paid to buy himself new clothes.”

The government decided in January 1980 to scrap the improvements grant completely and replace it with a improvements loan scheme but the abolition caused more headaches. The announcement was made on January 21, with the last application date for grants to be February 1. Some 45,000 applications flooded in during those 10 days, crippling the housing grants office in Dublin which had queues forming outside and the demands on staff so excessive they took a decision to stop dealing with personal callers.

On top of that, a postal dispute around February 1 meant some 3,000 applicants did not get their forms in on time so a decision was taken to retrospectively extend the deadline to February 8.

But the confusion in working out which forms were sent in time and dealing with complaints by people who didn’t post their forms because of the dispute and now felt hard done by, resulted in extra work and overtime costing an estimated £1.25m.