Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone from all of the different Departments for their input. I will come back to the issue of housing and the housing adaptation grants for people with disabilities and older people. Obviously, these grants are administered by Dublin City Council and other local authorities. My experience has been that, in many cases, the defined thresholds are too high when it comes to disability. I know of many cases where people with fairly obvious disabilities are not being assessed or looked at. There are also issues with regard to overcrowding and looking for extra space. Mr. O'Sullivan has said there is an increase in funding but I know of many cases in which people are not being properly assessed. Contrary to what he has said, I see an increase in the number of people seeking adaptations and things like that. Mr. O'Sullivan has said the amount of money and so on has been increased but I am not seeing it filtering down in the way I would like. Perhaps he could tell us a bit more about that.

The new joint national housing strategy involves co-operation and collaboration between Government Departments, the local authorities, the HSE and mental health services. What is the role of disabled persons' organisations, DPOs, and disability groups? I assume they are taken into account. Will Mr. O'Sullivan give us an idea of how that works?

We talk about housing and Mr. O'Sullivan's Department and we look at the homelessness figures, which show that almost 12,000 people are homeless, including 4,000 children. There are also 100,000 people on waiting lists. A substantial number of these people have disabilities. Does the Department have a role in tackling Government or holding it to account on something like that? There was a very significant underspend in housing. We saw that in the house building figures. That has a knock-on effect on people who have disabilities. Does the Department hold the Government to account or tackle it with regard to issues such as that underspend? I am not sure what its role is in that regard but I would have thought that this should be pointed out to Government so that it can be made aware.

Will the representatives of the Departments of Social Protection and Enterprise, Trade and Employment discuss further how their Departments work together to increase job creation and employment participation for people with disabilities? My experience in many cases has been that, while there is an obligation on local authorities, certain firms and so on to take on people with disabilities, those people generally do not get the best jobs. There is a reluctance to promote them and so on. Will the witnesses explain the role of the disability liaison officer? Does that officer have a role in tackling firms, businesses or local authorities that do not employ the proper proportion of people with disabilities? I would like to know that. If such officers do have that role, how do they engage?