asked the Minister for Local Government the amount of money he has made available to each local authority for the purchase of building sites; whether such moneys are in the form of a loan; and, if so, the repayment terms of such loans.

34.

asked the Minister for Local Government the amount of land (a) serviced and (b) unserviced available for house building.

35.

asked the Minister for Local Government in respect of each local authority the amount of serviced land available and earmarked for private house development.

With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 33, 34 and 35 together.

It is not possible to furnish this information in the form requested by the Deputy. Moneys are made available to local authorities for the purchase of building sites in a number of ways, directly by capital allocations —which may be drawn by way of loan from the Local Loans Fund or from other sources such as treasurers or insurance companies, or by the use of internal resources, such as capital receipts from the sale of property—or indirectly by subsidising loan charges on housing schemes for which land acquisition charges are normally included in the appropriate scheme loans. It would be impracticable to give details for each local authority of the amounts of such moneys, as no separate records are kept of the proportion of such loans or subsidies which has been applied to land acquisition. Separate loans are made available from time to time for the forward acquisition of land which may be used for housing schemes, private building sites or for other purposes such as amenity schemes, open spaces and so on. Such loans are raised over repayment periods varying from seven to 50 years.

I propose, with your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, to circulate with the Official Report, a statement showing the total number of housing sites held or being acquired at the end of February, by housing authorities. Separate figures are not available to show the number of these sites for which services are available.

The following is the statement:

Site Acquisition by Local Authorities.

NOTE: The figures relate to both serviced and unserviced sites and do not include sites on which dwellings are currently in progress. They include sites which may be used for private house-building.