Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that the Minister of State has secured additional funding for this area. It would be useful if the Minister of State could at some stage provide the House with information on waiting lists for adaptation grants in each of the local authorities. I know from other Deputies that in some areas none is being provided. It would be terrible if a person with a serious illness had to move from one county to another to obtain a better outcome, in particular a person in need of dialysis who must have his or her treatment in hospital rather than at home. What is being done in this area, in terms of the cost of caring for a person in hospital versus adaptation of his or her home, is not cost effective.

Funding home adaptations could act as a stimulus in the sense that these are shovel-ready projects which could begin tomorrow, thus creating employment and generating money for the economy.

There is a crisis and I ask the Minister of State to produce some solutions. In my local authority area people are waiting for up to three years, and they may be waiting longer in other local authority areas. Those affected are in poor health and these delays are having negative psychological and physical effects on them and their families. While I welcome the additional funding provided, we must wait and see the extent to which it will transform the difficult circumstances in which many families find themselves.

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