asked the Minister for the Environment if he is aware that very considerable difficulties appear to have arisen within his Department in indentifying particular applications for house improvement grants; whether he is aware that Deputies and other inquirers to his Department are receiving a standard response to their representations stating that difficulties in identifying applications are being experienced; whether he can take any steps to resolve the difficulties being faced by his officials; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

There are no difficulties within my Department in identifying applications for house improvement grants, nor are Deputies and other inquirers receiving a standard response to their representations from my Department.

Each inquiry is dealt with individually and all the information available in relation to the paraticular case is given. I am aware that from time to time, on the basis of the details supplied by Deputies, difficulties are experienced in tracing an application; but I find that this is due largely to the inaccuracy of the details supplied or to the fact that applications were never received from the persons concerned.

Would the Minister not accept that there is a room in his Department chock a block with applications under the old house reconstruction grants scheme and that he and his Department are utterly behind in dealing with these matters? I have received about 20 standard replies to representations I have made to the Minister's Department in respect of outstanding applications. Would the Minister of State accept that it is not reasonable to assume that 20 of my constituents have failed to fill up their application forms correctly in view of the fact that those were simple application forms printed by the Minister's Department on which one has only to fill in one's name and address?

Is the Deputy talking about the grants scheme?

Yes.

When the previous Government came into office the Ministers in the Department I am in now adopted the same procedures I adopted.

It was abolished at that stage.

Yes, it was abolished. Will the Deputy let me complete my reply and I will give him as much information as I possibly can? The same procedure I adopted in regard to the housing grants was implemented by the last Ministers. If there is any case which the Deputy or any other Deputy wants me to investigate I shall bring over the file and I will show the Deputies exactly what the position is. I will be as helpful as I possibly can.

I have no doubt the Minister will be helpful. Is he not aware that in his Department there are thousands of those applications in a room and it is not possible, because apparently of the backlog of work, for the Department officials to find some of those applications and that is the reason for the standard replies going out? Is he not further aware that the manner is which this scheme was abolished about two years ago was a silly way of doing so and that some decisions will have to be taken to resolve the thousands of applications which still exist?

Part of the Deputy's question will arise on the next few questons which I will be dealing with and possibly I will give the Deputy a more comprehensive reply then.

Perhaps the Minister could deal with the first question I asked.

If any Member of the House comes to me and tells me there is a file on those applications, I will let him see it. During the two weeks grace approximately 40,000 applications were received in my Department.

How many of those are still outstanding?

It will arise on another question and I will answer it also. I want to make it clear that the Ministers in the Deputy's Government, with all due respects to them, adopted the same course I adopted on the change of Government.

The Minister accepts there is a very serious problem in his Department?

There was a problem after the closing date of 1 February with the big number of applications which had to be entered and indexed but we were quick to get over all that.

Is the Minister aware that replies which I received four days ago have the standard reply saying: "We have received no application", I got three of those on the same day. When I asked the person mentioned about this I was told that the inspector called and approved the work. Who is codding us? The people are not, because I know them. I believe the blame lies in the Minister's Department. I want to know who is making up those standard replies.

In some cases when representations are made they do not state in the letters if it is the old or the new scheme. If there is a letter of that nature, of which I take a serious view, and the Deputy gives me a copy of it, I will certainly have it examined and I will communicate with the Deputy. I would be very annoyed if that is the case.

Would the Minister not agree that he is, under the guise of trying to be helpful to Members, creating a very unhelpful precedent for the public at large? He is opening a back entry door into his Department by inviting every Deputy in the House to start making representations to him. Nobody is holding the Minister responsible for the present situation. Would he not agree that his political responsibility is to improve the system of administration rather than invite every one of us to start snowballing him with representations which will gum up the works as it did in February 1980?

I will tell the Deputy the position in the Department. A number of councillors and Members of this House make representations on behalf of different people. If they fail with one person they go to another person and then they go to a further person. It is a repeat process which takes up a lot of the time of the officials. If there is a case which a Deputy has an interest in and he is not happy with the reply, I will be only too happy to get the file on it, bring it over and get my private secretary to show it to the particular Deputy or he can call to me and I will be very helpful if I can.

(Cavan-Monaghan): The Minister has kindly offered to bring the file here. Is he aware that in the case of most reliable people the answer is that no trace can be found of the application, from which it is clear that the file has been lost, mislaid or destroyed? Would the Minister agree that his offer to bring over a file — a file which cannot be found — may appear reasonable if one did not know about these stereotype answers going out that no trace can be found of those applications? I have a letter here, without giving names, from a man who is employed as a personnel foreman in a large factory and he will swear on a stack of bibles that he has an application in the Minister's Department. The answer is——

The Deputy is not allowed to read from a document at Question Time.

(Cavan-Monaghan): Is the Minister aware that the answer sent to a person like that is that there is no record of such an application?

Those people may not have posted the applications.

Deputies often have people who come to them and the Deputies write to me and say "So I am told" but "So I am told" may not have happened at all.

Deputy Michael O'Leary.

Briefly, would the Minister inform the House what sort of filing system is adopted in the Department? I am in a bit of a quandary. The Minister says part of the difficulty is caused by various Deputies making the same request. Surely the request can be answered in the same manner for all Deputies who ask the same question?

That is right.

If that is the case, surely the solution lies in an efficient filing system. I get an impression from the Minister's answers of a kafkaesque situation in which, apparently, new civil servants adopt a new approach to each individual application? Surely there should be a more up-to-date, efficient filing system, and would the Minister address his attention to that area?

For the Deputy's information, they are all indexed. In the index, there should be no problem in getting out the required application and having a look at it. The Deputy will appreciate the large volume of applications at the time. The officials of the Department had to deal with these as best they could within a very short space of time. I am happy that they dealt efficiently with the applications to the best of their ability.

(Cavan-Monaghan): The Minister cannot be serious.

The Deputy was a member of the former Coalition Government, and they adopted the same policy.

What is the policy?

If the applications are there, we can deal with them.

Would the Minister clarify one point arising from his reply? Could he confirm that on receipt of representations from Members of the House the files are actually looked at before the replies are sent out?

Yes, they are.

(Cavan-Monaghan): No, they are not.

If the files are in the Department, I have told the officials in my Department to examine the files and give the Members of this House all the up-to-date information they need.

(Cavan-Monaghan): The Minister will have to tell them again.

Question No. 5.

On a point of order——

Yes, the statutory authority which applied to the former schemes of house improvement grants——

On a point of order——

Would the Deputy please wait until the Minister has finished his reply? He is in the middle of replying.

But my point of order arises on the previous question.

I would like to have helped the Deputy, but I am sorry. Question No. 5.

My point of order was in respect of the previous question.

What is the Deputy's point of order?

I do not think that the Minister intends to mislead the House in relation to the question which I have asked. In fairness to the Minister and to the records of the House I would ask him to clarify this point. When I asked how many applications were outstanding under the scheme, the Minister said that he would be replying to that question. In fairness to the House——

Deputy Molony, I will disregard points of order if you abuse the position. I would have to.

The Minister said that he would be answering my question in one of the following questions and he has not done so. That question is not asked in Questions Nos. 5, 6 or 7.

It was not a point of order, but I will allow the Deputy to ask a final supplementary.

The Minister indicated that he would be giving the required information in answers to Questions Nos. 5, 6 and 7, but the question of how many applications were outstanding under that scheme was not asked in any of those. Would the Minister tell us how many grant applications are outstanding under the old house reconstruction grant?

I will be coming to that in Question No. 6.

The Minister will be replying to that?

To clear up a point, I did not mislead the House and certainly would not. I would not like that. That has been my intention since coming into the House.

The Minister is a decent man.

Question No. 5.

5.