This article is from page 18 of the 2011-01-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 18 JPG
THEY may have been St Flannan’s College old boys and senior ministers in the Fianna Fáil government, but past-pupil and party fraternity didn’t stop Sylvester Barrett and Michael O’Kennedy from having a stand-off at the cabinet table and a major disagreement on the direction and financial needs of housing policy in 1980.
As Minister for Finance, O’Kennedy had control of the purse strings, but Minister for the Environment Barrett felt his department needed more money to offset what he forecast would be a huge shortage of social housing as the 1980s progressed.
Minister Barrett took his concerns and demands for an extra £30m over his budgetary allocation for social housing to the Department of Finance, warning his ministerial colleague that unless money was forthcoming new house building levels wouldn’t be able to cater for the growing demand.
Minister Barrett pointed out that “demand was so high that new house prices had virtually doubled between 1977 and 1979”, while he also warned of unrest over the housing shortage.
“The number of houses to be completed in 1982 and 1983 will be lower than in any year since 1972,” warned Minister Barrett in making his case for extra funds for the sector. “There will be growing unemployment in the building and associated industries and widespread unrest among 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 loan schemes.”
However, the Minister for Finance was unmoved and wasted no time in hammering home the point to his ministerial colleague that “all government 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 de- partment’s ambit,” added Minister O’Kennedy as the stand-off between the two government departments escalated.
Meanwhile, the Department of the Taoiseach was keeping a watching brief on the two rowing departments before delivering another hammer blow to Minister Barrett’s housing policy in response to figures that showed the number of home improvement grants had jumped from 11,000 in 1977 to 30,000 in 1979, while the cost of administering the scheme had risen from £7m to £35m in the same period.
The home improvement grants scheme was abolished on January 21, 1980, with a final cut-off date for grant applications under the scheme being February 1 – ten days that brought the system to its knees as some 45,000 applications flooded in.