Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann: recognises:

— that Ireland is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which places an onus on signatories to ensure the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others, and the opportunity to choose their place of residence and where and with whom they live on an equal basis with others and are not obliged to live in a particular living arrangement;

— that the overarching goals of a housing policy should be affordability, sustainability, equality and social inclusion; and

— the importance of the Housing Aid for Older People Grant, the Mobility Aids Grant, and the Housing Adaptation Grant for People with a Disability to enable people to live independently in their own homes for longer;

notes that:

— the unprecedented increase in construction costs, rising costs of materials and the shortage of skilled labour in Ireland is putting the cost of these upgrades and essential works beyond the reach of most of the recipients of such grant assistance;

— there are significant waiting times for people awaiting grant approval;

— unacceptable delays exist for the adaptation of local authority homes to cater for the needs of older tenants and tenants with a disability and/or those people living in overcrowded conditions in local authority properties;

— many people are unable to live in their own homes until essential adaptation works are completed;

— the fixed price grant is no longer effective in the grant applications process; and

— the income thresholds are outdated and need to be reviewed in line with the Consumer Price Index; and

calls on the Government to:

— ensure grants are linked to the cost of the specific works as a percentage of the cost;

— allow discretion for people with disabilities to ensure that the grants meet the individual needs of the disabled person to live independently;

— allocate additional resources to local authorities to manage these schemes and the investment required in local authority housing stock;

— increase the budget allocated by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to ensure that grant schemes can meet the demand and reflect the increase in construction costs;

— increase the upper limits of the grants to reflect the increase in the cost of construction;

— incentivise the development of clustered bungalow housing close to services for older people; and

— review the recently announced, yet unavailable, retrofitting grants to reflect the significant rise in construction and materials costs.

The Minister of State, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, is welcome to the Chamber.I thank Cáit Nic Amhlaoibh, our administrator, for helping us to put the motion together, and Anne Timoney of the Oireachtas Library and Research Service for her assistance in preparing it.

As regards the motion, every Deputy knows how the application process works. Ireland is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which places an onus on signatories to recognise "the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others" and to ensure that persons with disabilities "have the opportunity to choose their place of residence and where and with whom they live on an equal basis with others and are not obliged to live in a particular living arrangement". The housing adaptation grants are there to help people do that.

It is important to note there has been an unprecedented increase in construction costs, including those relating to materials, and that there is a shortage of skilled labour.That is putting the cost of these adaptations relating to housing assistance for older people and mobility aid grants out of the reach of many. There are significant waiting times for the grants to be approved. There are unacceptable delays in the adaptation of local authority homes to cater for the needs of older tenants, tenants with disabilities and those living in overcrowded conditions in local authority areas. In my constituency, children who have needed a wheelchair since birth are now going into third level education but their houses still have not been adapted to suit their needs. In some of the cases, after years of waiting, the local authority is now proposing to move the entire family into another house in a different location. That is wrong. Due care is not being given to the fact that these children and families need to have accommodation to suit their needs in their own homes.

The fixed price for the grant is no longer effective. The income thresholds are outdated and need to be reviewed in line with the consumer price index. I can state without fear or favour that the grant system has been very good to people through many years since it was first introduced. We have seen the improvements it has made to people's homes. It keeps people in their homes for longer. However, it is an indictment of us, as politicians, idea that the grant has not been changed for the past 12 years. We need to ensure the scheme is brought up to date in such a way that it allows people to live at home. There is a cap of €30,000 on grants. In many cases, that amount would have been sufficient until approximately two years ago. Costs have gone up since then, however, and homeowners now have to borrow to supplement the grant, yet many people with disabilities have no means of paying back such a loan. As I stated, it is a good and very popular scheme but we need to update it and make sure it is fit for purpose going forward.

Last week in my constituency, a headline on the front page of the Tuam Herald stated that Galway County Council had run out of funding for disability grants and mobility aid grants. When I questioned the director of services about that, he told me that by early May the council had administered more than 1,000 applications for this year alone. There are seven months of the year left to go. Where is that director of services going to get the money to fund these schemes? He told me there is a rolling amount of money. He gets a fixed sum of money but he is hoping some of the grants will not be carried out or will not have to be paid out until next year and that he will be able to take the money out of the budget for next year. He is already borrowing from next year to try to meet the demand this year. That type of financial arrangement is not sustainable. We need to ensure that the funding is increased so that the demand is met. The value of the grants needs to be increased to a level that will mean they will actually be relevant in today's market.

The staff of Galway County Council, which is the only local authority with which I deal constantly, are under extreme pressure in trying to deal with the volume that is coming in their door.There are delays in the application process, getting technicians to go out and do inspections and getting the processes approved. At the end of the day, it is the homeowners who are suffering. It is important to realise that the scheme is there to serve them. If an application submitted last September or October has still not been assessed, then there is something wrong with the running of the scheme. The problem is that the local authorities do not have the necessary resources. It is definitely the case that Galway County Council, the second largest local authority in the country, does not have the resources to deal with the volumes coming in its door. The volume is increasing year on year because we have an ageing population. There is a need to adapt the scheme to enable it to cope with the volume that is coming in.

As a former a county councillor and since I became a Deputy, I have seen the benefits the scheme gives to households. I have seen how people can live independently in their houses for longer and fulfil their life ambitions. Given the way the scheme is going right now, however, we will end up with the scheme failing, people losing interest and more people going into nursing homes, which is not what we want.

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