asked the Minister for Local Government if he will increase the essential repairs housing grant.

I have no proposals at present to increase the level of the essential repairs grant.

Is the Minister aware that the amount of the essential repairs grant is completely unrealistic and does not have any impact on even the essential repairs of a house?

As the Deputy is aware, if local authorities feel the grant is insufficient they can add to the amount being allocated. I understand this is done in many cases but there is no proposal at this level.

The question asked if the Minister would consider this. If the local authorities are expected to increase their contributions, surely the Minister should try to keep the grants for essential repairs in line with inflation?

To suggest that this affects the whole country is far from the truth. The situation is that a number of houses which have been repaired have been costing an average of approximately £500 since 1972 to date. Roughly the same number of houses are being done every year. I have changed the system of local authority housing to allow many flatlets to be built for old people. A number of these people have been taken from tumbledown shacks where to spend even £80 was a waste of money. These people have been put into good houses in neighbouring villages. The Deputy is aware that this is so because it happened in his own area.

The small prefab houses being provided by the local authorities are costing in the region of £3,000 to £4,000.

But they are houses.

What I am saying is that there are existing houses which could be repaired. At the moment there is no question of essential repairs being carried out and old people must be given houses.

A question, please.

I am asking a question and I expect the Minister to give me an answer.

The Deputy got an answer, which is that the essential repairs grants are for keeping up houses which are almost falling down and where it would not be a good idea to spend large sums of money. In the cases I have referred to what happened is that rather than patch up houses which are falling down on the old people's heads, we have provided houses for them and they are very happy with that.