Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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159. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the extent to which the various local authorities have received adequate provision to meet the disabled persons housing adaptation grant requirements in 2013; the numbers awaiting approval throughout the various local authorities countrywide; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20939/13]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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My Department’s involvement with the Housing Adaptation Grant Schemes for Older People and People with a Disability relates primarily to the recoupment of a proportion of local authority expenditure on the payment of individual grants. These schemes, introduced in November 2007, are funded by 80% recoupments available from my Department together with a 20% contribution from the resources of the local authority.

On 22 February I announced capital allocations to local authorities under the suite of Grants for Older People and People with a Disability amounting to €42.750 million. In allocating the available funding across all 34 city and county councils I did so in as transparent and as fair a way as possible. In framing the 2013 allocations, my Department wrote to each local authority requesting details of the numbers and value of grants where work had been approved to commence. Between them, local authorities reported contractual commitments in respect of approved grants totalling €18 million. This year I allocated local authorities the full amount of their contractual commitments. The balance of the available funding was allocated on the basis of each authority’s share of the new applications on hand in January 2013.

In order to deal with any acute or particular difficulty which might arise in the operation of the schemes over the course of the year I have set aside a small capital reserve. I recently approved supplementary funding of €1.2 million to 13 local authorities from this reserve. I will consider requests for further supplementary allocations later in the year. Based on information submitted by local authorities to my Department in January 2013, details of the numbers of applications received but still awaiting approval at that time, broken down by scheme, are set out in the following table: