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

I thank everyone for their input. I have listened to everything witnesses have said and I relate to a lot of what the witnesses are saying from my own experience. I have met a lot of people who are making housing applications, and the process of doing that varies between local authorities. How much help is available or how often do witnesses come across this issue? I have come across it many times.

The other thing in terms of the Part Vs, the local authorities get their 10% but it is not earmarked for disabilities. It is an absolute disgrace that there is no consistency on that. Local authorities vary as well, so do the witnesses do anything on that? As 20% of the population has a disability of some description, surely we can identify a certain amount for people with disabilities in all these planning applications. It just does not make sense and I do not know how much progress is being made on that.

I often find that housing adaptation grants are inconsistent in different areas. I think the witnesses called for a review of that and maybe they have some suggestions about that. Even the process that has to be gone through is quite disturbing and sometimes very messy.

The retrofitting issue was very interesting. While the retrofitting programme is in place with local authorities in general, it is also not in place with people who are in private settings and who may not have an awful lot of money. Retrofitting is quite expensive. Are any suggestions being made as to how that should be enhanced? I know grants are available but, my God, in private houses in particular with elderly people or people who are disabled or have all sorts of issues, it just seems to be a nightmare. It does not seem to be very fair from what I can see.

CAS funding was mentioned. Will witnesses give examples of all the different funding streams? I know CAS is one and that it is identified for particular housing and funding for that. What other funding streams are available to build or to help people?

In making homes accessible, the use of technology is very important. Are we making progress in making this argument when other places are coming on stream? Are we asking for assistive technologies? How far have we progressed on all of those?