Mr. Patrick O'Sullivan:

I thank the committee for the invitation to represent the Department on housing policy for disabled people and for providing the opportunity to brief members on this important area. I am a principal officer with responsibility for social inclusion, while my colleague Clare Naughton is the assistant principal officer in social inclusion.

The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage’s policy in respect of housing for disabled people is underpinned by a dedicated joint strategy undertaken between the Department and the Department of Health since 2011. The new joint National Housing Strategy for Disabled People 2022-2027 was launched by the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, on 14 January 2022. The new strategy sets out the vision for the co-operation and collaboration to be undertaken by Government Departments, State agencies, including local authorities, and others in delivering housing and related supports for disabled people over the next five years.

The strategy operates within the framework of Housing for All – A New Housing Plan for Ireland, which is committed to ensuring that affordable, quality housing, with an appropriate mix of housing design types provided within social housing, including universally designed units, is available to everyone in Irish society, including those with disabilities. The plan sets out, over four pathways, a broad suite of measures to achieve its policy objectives together with a financial commitment of in excess of €4 billion annually.

Since the publication of the new strategy, work has been under way to achieve the objectives set out in it. The Housing Agency, together with all of the Departments and agencies involved, have also been developing an implementation plan to ensure that a comprehensive suite of actions involving all stakeholders is put in place which will ensure the delivery of the high-level objectives. A national implementation steering group, chaired by the Housing Agency, has already been established. The group is actively advancing implementation of the strategy and will have responsibility for the delivery of the actions in the implementation plan. The finalisation of the implementation plan is a key priority. It is planned to publish it in conjunction with the launch of an awareness campaign shortly.

We have already provided a note to the committee, which highlighted the overall vision of the strategy to facilitate disabled people to live independently with the appropriate choices and control over where, how and with whom they live, promoting their inclusion in the community. To that end, the areas that are to be addressed to deliver on this vision are set out across a number of themes: accessible housing and communities; interagency collaboration and the provision of supports; affordability of housing; communication and access to information, knowledge, capacity, and expertise; and strategy alignment.

Among the objectives of the strategy is to meet our commitments under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to facilitate disabled people to live independently and as part of the community. The strategy aims to ensure that disabled people have equal access to housing and clearer pathways to accessing support services, promoting their inclusion in the community from a housing perspective. Successful housing outcomes for disabled people requires an effective blending of housing and health policy. We are collaborating very productively under the national housing strategy for disabled people with our colleagues in the Departments of Health and Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and local authorities and the HSE to plan for the delivery of services to meet the needs of disabled people. As part of this collaboration, the Department and the HSE jointly fund mental health tenancy sustainment officers who support people with mental health difficulties to sustain their tenancies and prevent homelessness.

Housing and disability steering groups, which were established under the previous strategy, are reaffirmed under the new strategy as the most effective forum for delivery of the outcomes of the strategy at the local level. They are responsible for the preparation of local strategic plans for the housing of disabled people. The role of the housing and disability steering groups will be strengthened over the lifetime of the national strategy. Housing and disability steering groups are chaired at senior level by the directors of services in the local authority and membership includes representation from the HSE, disabled persons organisations and approved housing bodies, AHBs.

The Department delivers on housing for disabled people by stimulating supply in the private sector and directly funding social housing. Local authorities and AHBs are key partners in this regard. Housing for disabled people is funded from the mainstream capital programmes for social housing in local authorities, as well as the capital assistance scheme, which provides funding to approved housing bodies for specialist housing, including AHBs like the Irish Wheelchair Association, the Housing Association for Integrated Living, HAIL, and others that specialise in housing for disabled people.

Returns from local authorities indicate an increase year on year in allocations of social housing to households with disability as a primary basis of need. In 2016, there were just over 1,200 such households accommodated doubling to over 2,400 households last year, representing 15% of total allocations for 2022.

For disabled people who remain living in their existing home, the housing adaptation grant scheme for people with a disability and older people, the mobility aids grants scheme and the housing aid for older people scheme allow disabled people in private housing to make adaptations and improvements to their homes to enable them to go on living there in comfort.

Funding totalling €83.125 million is available to local authorities for these grant schemes in 2023, ensuring a continuation of the year-on-year increases in the grants since 2014. This funding allocation is expected to result in some 12,300 grants for older people and disabled people to facilitate them living independently in their own homes. In line with the Housing for All commitment, the Department has prepared a report on the review of the grants which the Minister is currently considering.

The Department is firmly committed to the strategic framework in place to deliver housing and related supports for disabled people to live independently. To this end, the Department will be working closely and collaboratively with the Housing Agency, together with the other Departments and key agencies, in driving delivery of the new strategy. At the same time, working collaboratively together with the disability sector is critical to achieving the common objective of the delivery of housing for disabled people through mainstream housing policy in a supported environment. We are happy to answer any questions that the committee may have.