Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I fully agree with Deputy Ó Broin that standards in respect of universal living and designing for older people should come from central government. If we leave them to 31 or 32 local authorities, there will be differences across the country. I agree that it is much easier to design these things at the beginning rather than retrofit them. As Mr. Moynihan said, a 3% cost over the lifetime of a building is nothing and it is much more costly to retrofit after 30 years. Much of the stuff we did is working today. Doors are wider and access is much easier. A walk-in shower is now in fashion, whereas years ago we favoured a cubicle. Nowadays everyone wants a wet room and this is integrated seamlessly into designs.

Everyone has mentioned the housing adaptation grant and there are, indeed, huge inconsistencies across local authorities. Even within local authorities, people do not fully understand how a decision was made as to why some person got it while some other person did not.

However, I am more concerned about the people who are not aware that these grants are available to them. We have all encountered such people. We have knocked on doors and met elderly people who are not aware that there is funding available to assist them. That is something we must address. I met a couple in their 80s in my constituency office who were trying to get exterior insulation for their house, but it is a terraced house and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, will not grant it. No matter what they put into their house, they are wasting their time. It is a solid block wall and they cannot insulate it. Sometimes we have to be able to bend the grants to suit genuine applicants such as that couple. I have looked everywhere for them but I cannot get anything for them. They cannot heat their house and because it is a terraced house and the other neighbours will not do the wraparound insulation, they do not qualify for it.

When I look back on the facilities that were available in my county about 40 years ago, I sometimes think that people were more aware then of the housing needs of elderly people. In my community, the town council in Wicklow built Crinion Park, a scheme of 40 or 50 houses beside the old health board. People wanted to move there. I am not sure which witness mentioned it but if we build these facilities, people will want to move into them. Sadly, the health board has gone so Crinion Park is sitting there and is not being utilised to its full extent. The other example was in the small rural town of Carnew. Carnew Community Care, again built by champions of the community, now has 28 supported living houses. That was built in the 1980s. There is a supportive day care centre and people want to move into them.

I believe that we should get the standards right from the first day, rather than retrofit them. If we can build the homes that people want to move into, rather than forcing them to move into them, we will begin to tackle the grant. However, we are a long way from doing away with the housing adaptation grant. If we had a hundred times the amount of funding, we still would not have enough. It will be there for a long time.