Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations. It would be worth taking a step back and reminding people why we are here today. The Chair's proposal to have these sessions and for the committee to produce a report is very important, so it is not merely a case of the witnesses coming here and telling the committee what they think and us responding; the purpose of these hearings is for the Chair to author, and then the committee members to agree, a report with very specific recommendations on the policy or funding changes we want the Government to make. My question relates to that part of our work, however I wish to respond to a couple of the debates and raise two of the biggest challenges which the witnesses have put to us which I hope will form a big part of our discussion on the other side of the hearings.

It is timely that we are having this meeting in the same week as Focus Ireland launches its campaign on older people and homelessness. It is only one part of the picture but the fact that we have seen a 40% increase in the number of older people in emergency accommodation is shocking. We are in a cycle where we think we cannot be shocked anymore by the numbers of homeless children or families. It might sound like a small number, but the idea that there are 119 people in emergency accommodation is shocking. The most shocking thing is how easy it would be to get those people out of emergency accommodation. It is not as though we do not have 119 appropriate units somewhere in the country for those people. I wanted to start by highlighting that campaign and urging people to support it.

In my constituency, I have found an increasing number of older people, people in their late 50s or early 60s, in mortgage difficulty or being forced into emergency accommodation often after a relationship breakdown. That is an issue before we discuss the older people who have to move back in with their adult sons and daughters because of their own housing crises. I suspect some of the figures that are disturbing us will get worse. It is important for us to be mindful of that.

On the adaptation grants, it is important to remember the €60 million is not only for older people's adaptation grants but also for disability grants, which are a smaller portion of the figure. In next year's budget the Government will have an extra €3 billion of fiscal space and we could, for example, simply double the budget if the Government was of a mind to do so. We all need to ask for more from the Government on the budget, particularly when it is such a small sum of money and those adaptations have a transformational impact on people's lives. These are things such as getting a stair lift which allows someone to access half of their home, which they may not have been able to access for several years, or getting a downstairs shower or wet room. I would like to see this committee recommend that in addition to reversing some of the negative changes to the grant, a significant increase be made in that grant to local authorities. I would like to get some sense of where the witnesses would like to see us pitching this. In my local authority area, one can wait three years for a grant. That is not only for minor mobility aids, but also for serious adaptation work. I am sure it is the same in other local authority areas, but I have constituents, whether local authority tenants or private home owners, who go through the very complicated process, are deemed eligible but then are put in a queue in which they can remain for three years. These are people who have already had the crisis and are already waiting for the funds and suffer an additional wait. The length of time people who have been approved for the grant have to wait is something that we need to highlight.

I am also concerned that local authorities and elected representatives on local authorities - and I include myself in this when I was a councillor - do not have a good record on ensuring that when Part 8 social housing stock is being planned, there is both adequate provision for a sufficient supply of units to meet the needs of older people and to facilitate downsizing as a genuine choice rather than as something that is forced. I would be interested in the witnesses' thoughts on this. I have never been part of a conversation about age-friendly design in a local authority context. Whatever about the private sector, to which I will return in a moment, we should look for local authority new builds - of which there will be 40,000 in the next couple of years - to have age-friendly design built into them at a minimum.