Ms Una Nagle:

The spectrum of support is quite wide. For people who can live in ordinary houses in ordinary communities, and I will take that group first, for planning purposes we are always on the look out for suitable housing. Driven by the needs of the individuals and their wishes, we aim to find an appropriate house. When we do come across it, we invariably must put a deposit on it straight away and close within a certain period. In that period, the application for CAS funding must be submitted and we must verify with the council that the people involved are on the housing list. The council is not that open to putting everybody on the housing list so there may be a delay there and that is one barrier straight away. We should ensure, for planning purposes, that everybody awaiting accommodation is on the housing list and accepted by the council.

The second barrier is the amount of funding that is available for CAS. We have some people living in their own apartments who need assistance, so there must be staff living in the house or in an apartment in the same complex to support them. Depending on the number of individuals, that second apartment is not always recognised for CAS funding purposes, so you are left with a sum of maybe between €93,000 and €95,000 per unit. You will not get an apartment for that. That is the third barrier, which is the gap between CAS funding and the actual cost of a facility.

We also find another reason CAS is not looked as is because it is seriously short of what is required for purpose-built accommodation. It is not the stream that would support such developments. Therefore, we either have to increase CAS funding to meet that need or find a separate funding stream. Agencies are looking to see whether we can identify funding streams, but it does involve us incurring debt and we have to mortgage some properties against it. We feel this should be a problem that is taken on board by the State which should work with us and plan for the need that is out there.