Mr. John Mulholland:

Deputy Tully asked if the situation has improved. Everybody would like to think that it has but the proof is in the pudding. All I can say is that for local authorities, in their own right as housing providers, and in dealing with approved housing bodies of which there are several registered in the country, there is a renewed emphasis on the type of accommodation first of all. However, in the case of tailor-made designs for people who are on the housing list this can be difficult to predict sometimes. People reach the top of the housing list but their physical condition could improve or deteriorate in any particular year so we need to be ready on the spot to provide whatever improvements or facilities are required in any particular house or apartment and we try to manage that.

Equally, in relation to the disabled persons' grants, we work with our occupational therapists through the HSE and again the dynamics of that can change in any particular year. We get quite an amount of support from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage on that. To establish a metric as to whether it has improved or not I would not be prepared to say that this morning without having concrete evidence and I suspect Deputy Tully would understand that. It is certainly one of the things we are working on because one of the benefits of the engagement this morning is that it is prodding us with the kinds of responses required by DPOs, Nem and others about levels of engagement, records and that kind of stuff. We will be tracking that fairly closely.

I have to say, and this is my personal view on housing delivery right across the board, that there is a renewed awareness and design instinct for universal access and spaces in houses. We need to be able to determine the quantity or ratio of disabled provision vis-à-visother provision. I mentioned a 10% figure earlier as being in most housing delivery action plans, but that can vary from county to county and from year to year. To give an example, in County Laois which has a population of only 92,000 people, approximately 11,400 people are recorded as having some form of disability. If that is replicated across the country the level and complexity of design issues that would come to hand can be seen. I think instinctively that it has improved but I do not have any evidence to support that.