asked the Minister for the Environment the present position in relation to the payment of a house improvement grant to a person (details supplied) in County Galway.

There is no record of the receipt in my Department of an application for a house improvement grant from the person named.

(Cavan-Monaghan): Did I understand the Minister to say there was no record of an application in this case?

No, there is no record.

(Cavan-Monaghan): Does that not prove what I was saying yesterday, that there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of these cases? They are in Galway and in Cavan. Every Deputy is getting the same answer that there is no record of an application. Will not the Minister agree that this calls for some kind of investigation? Everyone cannot be wrong.

I asked the Department to do a thorough check on this matter. The civil servants informed me of the position. The Deputy was in government and he had the pleasure of working with civil servants. He must fully realise their position also. I am giving the House the information as given to me by the Department. I queried very recently replies of this nature and asked that the information be checked. It is my intention to continue to do that.

(Cavan-Monaghan): I am asking the Minister as a sensible man — not as a Minister of State — if he thinks that people in Cavan, Monaghan, Galway and throughout the country are suffering from hallucinations thinking that they are posting applications for loans when they are not so doing.

With due respect, I think the Deputy may be exaggerating the point. As I pointed out yesterday, in the two weeks between the announcement and the closing date on 1 February some 40,000 applications were received in the Department, were indexed, recorded and files made up. In some cases people told the Deputy and other Deputies that they had posted forms but they may not have done so. I cannot say, but I am going on the information I got from the Department.

4.