Mr. Tony Cunningham:

On the grants scheme, I have a copy of the pre-budget submission that the Irish Wheelchair Association submitted for this year. One item relates directly to the housing adaptation grant. I just noticed yesterday that the fourth report on the implementation of the national housing strategy for people with disabilities cites expenditure on the grants as €60 million. While that sounds enormous, it actually averaged out at about €6,000 per person. A practical example of that is when the needs of one of our own tenants changed. She had a profound physical disability and applied for the grant because she needed an extra bedroom built onto a small, one bedroom house. After tendering and going out for a number of prices, the cost to complete the extension - an en suite bedroom and a bit of reconfiguration - was €63,000. The maximum grant was €30,000. Fortunately in that case, the person contributed the other €30,000 which luckily came to her at that point in time. That is my understanding. Otherwise, it would not have gone ahead. That is a typical example.

The grant is a figure that somebody set and stood back from. It does not deal with the reality of life, the economy or the increasing costs that have been referred to again and again. It is wonderful for the small adaptations in a house but for more substantial work, there needs to be serious consideration given to it. The flexibility should be given to the local authorities to deal with it. Expenditure is needed and the grant creates savings elsewhere. These adaptations cut back on the requirement for personal assistance if someone has a house that meets their needs. For example, someone could have a ceiling tracking hoist which would mean they would only need one personal assistant, PA, to support them as opposed to two. It is a complex set-up. It is a figures game but somebody has just turned the other way and is not looking at it. How long are we going to continue with expenditure of €60 million on the housing adaptation grant and not build houses that are wheelchair accessible in the first place? A high degree of universal design could allow for simple adaptations over time. If we look at sustainable communities, if we do some long-term planning and design these houses to a degree of specification, over time we will be reducing the requirement for the housing adaptation grant.

I was asked about what Departments come into play. The obvious one is the Department of Health in terms of the funding of PAs and the protocols and all that. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform holds the purse strings. Everyone needs to talk and realise there are verified costs here so that it is not a battle every time we go back to something. The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport was referred to earlier. Going back to our pre-budget submission, personal assistants, housing and transport are obvious ones and I am sure there are others we can bring into the loop.

The Senator referred to 1,300 people inappropriately placed in nursing homes. I referred to that earlier. I would be encouraging that the unmet need for housing be recorded in order that we get a full picture. Some local authorities are resisting a call from people to register their housing need to plan for the next five years or whatever, because they have such numbers as they are they do not want it to grow. The Government does not want to see the numbers grow, it wants to see them coming down. There is a lot of need there, including among people in nursing homes. Many others are sleeping on couches or living in family homes with siblings, elderly parents and so on. It is only a snapshot of a bigger number. Going back to the housing design issue, there is room for creativity in terms of the models of housing. There are many models that could lie in between that of a two-bed house with one person living in it with their PA, and that of a nursing home with 50 or 100 bedrooms. For example, we could have two houses sharing a PA room so they can share the one PA at night on whom they can call. There could be three or four houses sharing a PA room. Instead of four separate PAs in four separate locations, or a nursing home, there could be a facility designed and funded and provided with assistive technology, which we have not mentioned today. A short-term outlay would have long-term savings for the Exchequer. There is a lot of creativity that can be brought into that loop to bring people out of nursing homes into set-ups that support them socially, emotionally and physically within a nice environment.