asked the Minister for the Environment whether he has now located the correspondence and application form of a person (details supplied) in County Dublin in connection with a house improvement grant application; and, if so, the present stage of the application.

Despite an exhaustive search, ther is no record in my Department of the receipt of an application for a house improvement grant for the person named. Unless evidence can be produced to indicate that an application was made in time to reach my Department by 1 February 1980 nothing further can be done. The correspondence already received from the applicant and the Deputy does not provide such evidence.

The Minister will be aware that this applicant has gone through the only conceivable means available to him to get this grant, or to send in the application, and then he discovers the Department have lost the application. The only way he can state that the application was lodged is to send further information by way of registered letter. Has the Minister any memory of that registered letter being received?

Yes, but a registered letter is not an application. The registered letter was received after the closing date. It had nothing to do with the application. The application, as far as I am concerned, was not received before the closing date and I do not accept that the application got lost in the Department.

Then if the person in this situation were to make a sworn affidavit, as has been suggested in the previous question, would the Minister not be prepared to accept the sworn word of that person that he had applied prior to the closing date?

A sworn affidavit cannot be accepted as proof that the application was lodged with my Department before the closing date. If there is any further evidence such as a receipt or acknowledgment from the Department we will certainly accept that as proof but, in the absence of that application, which has to be in the department by a certain date, unfortunately that is the position.

The Minister will be aware, as we all are, that there was considerable confusion in the Department after this grant scheme closed, and the confusion ran to such an extent that the public office was locked for a number of weeks because the office was not able to cater for the number of people calling. Public representatives were not allowed to call and at one stage Ministers were not able to get into their own offices. In a situation where they could manage to lose a junior Minister is it not conceivable that they could lose a number of applications? Surely the Minister could accept the sworn word of an applicant. Otherwise he is questioning evidence given by a person under oath that he applied prior to the closing date.

There are a whole lot of points. He could have delivered the letter by hand or posted it.

Posting of a letter is legal proof of sending the application.

Is the Minister saying that a persons sworn word will not be accepted by a Department of State in a so-called Catholic country?

That is not relevant.

13.