Social Solidarity Minister Dolores Cristina said yesterday that she would be meeting a Church commission which recently issued a statement critical of high property prices.

Mrs Cristina told Parliament during the debate on the Housing Authority that she had welcomed the commission's report and was looking forward to discussing its various points and hearing what the commission was proposing to ease current problems.

She would also be taking up a suggestion made by Labour MP Stefan Buontempo for the holding of a national conference of all stakeholders because, as Dr Buontempo himself had said, property prices were not a problem which only involved the government.

Mrs Cristina said that while there should be a free market and one could not make interventions which hindered the market, one had to be careful that there was no abuse and low-income people should not be trampled upon.

One needed a free market and a social market moving in parallel. The government's role was to come up with initiatives and schemes to assist those who could not afford housing. That included financial assistance, the building of new properties and the re-development of old tenements.

There was still a lot to be done, but a lot had been done and the Housing Authority was reaching a category of people who, in other times, would not have gone to the authority and others who had never hoped they would once own their home.

Turning to rent reform, Mrs Cristina said the final draft of a White Paper was now before the Cabinet and once that discussion was concluded, in a few weeks, the government would publish the proposals for public debate. She hoped that at that stage the MLP would contribute to the debate and not remain tight-lipped as it had done when the pensions White Paper was issued.

The White Paper, she said, would include incentives to encourage landlords to put vacant properties on the market.

However it was not true that the reform would put something like 20,000 vacant properties on the market, as some people had argued in the newspapers. The rent laws were brought up to date in 1995 and since then there had therefore been nothing to stop those vacant properties from being rented.

The focus of the reform, therefore, would be the complex situation governing occupied properties rented before 1995.

On the shared ownership scheme operated by the authority, the minister said it was not true that the housing units were issued in a way which competed with the commercial sector. Applicants were able to buy a third of the property and agree on how the rest could be bought at the same subsidised rate in the future.

The authority has realised that after moving in, most of its beneficiaries went in for unnecessary expense by changing tiles, windows and bathrooms. Therefore, the properties were now being sold shell and the difference was calculated in the price.

Mrs Cristina said a Lm3 million scheme announced by the Prime Minister in the Budget for the Housing Authority to buy property from the private sector was still on. There were currently 35 applications from owners to sell their property.

Another Lm2 million had been allocated to help 250 couples buy their first residence. This scheme would be launched next month once its details were drawn up.

Mrs Cristina said the Labour Party needed to be clear in its views on requisition, which this government had discontinued.

Parliamentary Secretary Tony Abela, who spoke earlier in the debate, said he could not help comparing the current housing situation with that several years ago when private property owners had seen their houses requisitioned and rented out at low prices. Complaints about political favouritism in the way the government allocated units had been rampant, but no such complaints were being made today.

Dr Abela praised the Housing Authority for the assistance it was giving for people to buy or rent properties. It was offering to buy vacant old dwellings in village cores, with a view to refurbishing them and putting them back on the market. Dr Abela said one of the authority's duties was to check the veracity of applications for social housing.

In too many cases of properties rented out at nominal rates by the authority, tenants spent next to nothing to rectify defects brought about by the passage of time. It was convenient for them to wait for the authority to keep coming up with new schemes that helped them more and more. These cases, too, constituted problems for the authority.

In the allocation of housing units the authority was, rightly, giving some preference to people with disability. It was important, however, for the authority to commission its own doctors to check disability claims because he knew of a case or two of people who benefited in this way but were healthier than him.

He also called for resolution of a long-standing problem whereby tenants who had built their homes on land granted to them by the government still did not enjoy full title.

Dr Abela said the ministry had perforce to look at the housing aspect as part of a much larger picture.

The phenomena of single parenthood and marital separations had been almost inexistent 10 years ago, but now the authority had to provide housing for such people. Indeed, the authority even had to provide housing for some refugees, Dr Abela observed.

Labour MP Stefan Buontempo hit out at the government over soaring property prices and said the priority in this debate was for the minister to outline what her government would do to ease the problems which thousands of Maltese were facing.

In the 2005 budget the minister had promised a scheme to help those who lost their jobs and risked losing their homes. Nothing had been done about this.

While the government boasted of schemes to refurbish existing properties so that they could continue being used, the authority had only spent Lm464,000 on a total of 400 homes, which averaged at just over Lm1,000 per house. Very little could be done with this amount.

The authority also issued subsidies to help people renting property from the private sector but such subsidies, at Lm39 per month per household, had now become far too low. It was nowadays impossible to find property for rent at less than Lm100 per month.

The government had also promised, seven years ago, to set up a slum clearance agency. What had become of it?

Referring to property prices, Dr Buontempo asked what had become of the Housing Affordability in Malta report, issued some years ago. He suggested that a national conference grouping all interested parties should be convened to discuss the issue, but it was important that this was followed by effective action.

Dr Buontempo said the Housing Authority's plans to buy properties from the private sector for reallocation to social cases had flopped, with only two promises of sale being made when the acquisition of up to 100 properties had been mentioned.

The authority had also rented a block of buildings for Lm17,000 a year for 10 years, after which the block would revert to the owner. This scheme was being mismanaged, with one-bedroomed flats in this building being rented by the authority at Lm100 a month. On the other hand, the authority had land in Gozo which it did business with.

The authority was ending up acquiring property at high prices, selling at high prices to some but cheaply to others, and paying more than normal for construction.

The Labour MP said he was in favour of the shared ownership scheme in principle, but not in the way it was being operated. Applicants were in a take-it-or-leave-it situation.

Turning to the revision of rent laws, Dr Buontempo observed that minister Dolores Cristina had last year said plans for the reform were on track. In 2004 she even said that a Bill would be moved in Parliament by the following June, but nothing had happened.

Similarly, what had become of the national housing policy?

Concluding, Dr Buontempo said the Nationalist government projected itself as a social government. So how was it allocating Lm1 million less for subsidies by the Housing Authority?

Joe Debono Grech (MLP) said the government should be ashamed over the problems which young couples now faced when they sought to buy property. True, one could not buy a Mars bar when Labour had been in government (in the 70s and 80s), but the people did not have the problems they had now in the most important things, such as making ends meet, holding a job and buying a house.

The huge social housing programme which the Labour government had launched was still in evidence wherever one went in Malta. Before 1971 the situation had been virtually the same as today, leading youths to protest in the streets.

The Nationalist government should be ashamed of professing that it was selling homes at the subsidised price of Lm30,000, knowing full well that low-income families could never afford them.

How could a couple raise a family while paying their house loan until they were 65? The only other property they could hope to buy after that was a grave. In the meantime, banks were taking over properties recovered from people who defaulted their payments.

Some people who desperately needed a home were resorting to buying garages and living in them, poor substitutes for proper homes.

Joe Cassar (PN) said the real situation of housing in Malta was not as bad as Labour spokesmen were making it out to be. The Housing Authority was doing a lot of good in its sphere.

Among the policies of the authority was the installation of lifts in apartment blocks. The authority had also allocated Lm5,000 for lift installation in the private homes of disabled people.

It had also launched a scheme to help vulnerable people, with priority for one-bedroomed social housing for senior citizens who would never willingly choose to leave their long-held homes.

This was the second year of the Headstart scheme under the Equal Programme of the European Social Fund. This provided skills training, work and accommodation for former residents of institutions. The project was costing €263,721, of which the authority would fork €65,000.

The authority was also providing useful financial assistance to NGOs for the refurbishment of homes for vulnerable people, such as the Richmond Foundation, Dar Merhba Bik, the Emigrants Commission, the Ursuline Creche, the YMCA and Agenzija Sapport.

Mario de Marco (PN) said both sides of the House could boast of doing what they felt was best to improve the lot of those having a housing problem.

The Housing Authority deserved to be praised for the policies and schemes it had launched to meet current demands.

There was no doubt that property prices weighed heavily on the people's minds. One newspaper had carried three opinion pieces on this subject in one issue. Some had suggested new taxation measures or a register of prices.

Clearly, everyone wished that prices would be within the reach of more people, but the realities of a free market prevented the government from making certain interventions to affect the prices which the market dictated.

While Opposition MPs were blaming the government for current prices, feasible suggestions on how the problem could be tackled had not been forthcoming.

There was little that could be done to control what was dictated by a free market.

Indeed, the current situation underlined the role which the Housing Authority had to help those people who were victims of the free market and could not afford the prices demanded for property.

The authority had gone beyond just allocating tenements for a nominal rent to those having the lowest income. It was also helping those people who were not so poor but could still not afford to buy a home. Hence the authority sold apartments at subsidised rates.

In this context, the shared ownership scheme had been a success, enabling tenants to buy a third of the property and rent the remainder for purchase in the future at a pre-determined price. This was a very fair deal.

Significantly, the authority was involved in urban regeneration projects in Cospicua and Floriana, where sub-standard properties were being demolished and the sites re-developed. Some 88 apartments and a number of garages, costing in total over Lm2 million, were currently being built under such projects.

In March the authority also announced it was prepared to buy apartment blocks from the private sector. These would then be refurbished and re-allocated. Such a scheme was especially appropriate for Valletta, where many people sought alternative accommodation but were reluctant to move out of the city.

Dr de Marco said he had been criticial in the past that the authority was not offering enough properties for rent. However he was pleased to note that their number had increased this year, while pressure had also eased because of the new shared ownership scheme and the subsidies on rents from the private sector.

Indeed, it was positive that the assistance given under this rent subsidy scheme had been improved.

Concluding, he said that in the debate on rent law reform it was worth remembering that the rental market was liberalised in 1995, in the sense that rents were no longer protected - a property rented for a year would not end up being held permanently by the tenant.

It was fair enough to discuss what changes could be made to the pre-1995 laws. This was a sensitive issue and he was sure a document would be issued shortly to stimulate discussion.

Carmelo Abela (MLP) said that if speakers like Dr Cassar held that all the good that had been done was thanks to the Nationalist government, it followed that all that was still undone should be blamed on the same government.

He felt that the free market was here to stay, but at least it should be controlled to ensure that it was not barbaric, riding roughshod over one and all.

Mr Abela said he would like to see the Housing Authority and Mepa hold discussions on the use of land and a relevant housing policy.

According to the chairman, the Housing Authority was concentrating on the improvement of existing property. This was positive, but it also had to work on new buildings because not enough social housing stock was being provided for people who could not afford to commit to certain debts. A housing policy on the best use of land was very important, and this was lacking.

Having families living together in small homes was not ideal, but a better environment for children did not mean building everywhere up. Children needed where to play, so it was important to have open space where they could do this. When allocating properties, the authority should ensure that zones did not end up ghettoes of particular social problems.

Mr Abela also complained over rising property prices. The increase in prices year in year out did not just reflect a fair profit. Another recent reality was that rather than investing money in bank accounts, people were opting to "invest" in property. Was the government seeing if there were people who were abusing? What impact would this have on first-time property buyers?

The government, which was also the biggest land owner, should see how to control speculation for the benefit of the weakest in society.

Mr Abela said he received several complaints that subsidies given by the authority were too low and its prices too high. Most of those who needed the authority's help could not meet these prices. The authority should drastically reduce its prices rather than compete directly with the private sector.

Mr Abela said a Labour Party priority following the next general election would be to launch schemes for the acquisition of property from the private sector and incentives for those renting or buying vacant property. It would also work with the banks and other financial institutions. He said that there was a reality of youths without homes, such as those losing their homes after losing their job. The government should come up with schemes purposely with this in mind.

Labour MP Joe Brincat said it was important to have a stock of houses that were recycled. One should try to fight the mentality that a couple just getting married should have three bedrooms all at once. Young couples should look for a starting a nest rather than a large house.

The estimates were later approved after a division.