Mr. Tony Cunningham:

The housing adaptation grant is a valuable resource for keeping people in their homes but there are two problems with it. The first is that the limit of €30,000 is totally out of kilter with building costs at the moment. We were supporting a person who wanted to stay in their home because the alternative was to become homeless and go on the council's housing list. After going to tender for an en suite bedroom and a few smaller adaptations, the person was quoted €63,000, while the grant was a maximum of €30,000. The person concerned happened to be in the fortunate and exceptional position of being able to pay €30,000 and we paid the rest. She was able to go ahead with the work. The alternative, in the absence of the grant, was homelessness.

I raised this matter at a national committee recently and was a bit taken aback by the response, which was that if we raise the limit of the grants, we would be able to give out fewer grants, as if that was relevant. This is about meeting individual needs.

The second point relates to how means are assessed for the grant. It takes into account all the household income. Consider a family in which a child has a disability and is living with his parents. He may inherit the house or perhaps he is just living in it for the next ten years. If his brother happens to be 18 or 19, still lives in the house and has a job, the brother's salary is taken into account in the means test. That makes no sense. The adaptation is not for the brother, or the parents, it is for the person with a disability to live a more independent life. Those two things need to change. In a way, we are blue in the face calling for those changes but nothing is happening. The alternative is that people go on the approved housing list and look for a new house instead of facing a cost of €50,000 or €60,000.