Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will ask a few questions, if that is okay. All the members present have come in at this stage.

On housing, I brought up the matter of the national housing strategy for disabled people with the Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy O'Donnell, yesterday. I was assured the implementation plan would be published within a few weeks, which I hope it will. I am interested in one of the answers that was given to Deputy Canney, which indicated that grants were available for new-build houses. Why is there a grant for new-build houses? Do we not have a target that all new builds will be fully accessible to a universal design, UD++, standard? Are there plans within the implementation plan and strategy to review Part M guidelines? Many of the houses being built now are only built to a wheelchair-visitable rather than a wheelchair-livable standard, and they need to be reviewed. All houses should be built to a wheelchair-livable standard, but certainly a percentage need to be fully accessible so that we will not actually need grants. It is more cost-effective in the long term if new houses are built to a certain standard instead of trying to adapt houses at a later stage.