Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom míle buíochas a ghabháil leis an nGrúpa Réigiúnach as an rún a chuir siad os comhair na Dála inniu. Díospóireacht dearfach, tábhachtach agus cuiditheach is ea é. It has been a positive but constructive debate. I thank the Deputy for tabling the motion and I appreciate the contributions of the members of the Regional Group so far. As the Minister of State, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, stated at the outset, we will not be opposing the motion. The area of adaptation grants for our older people and, indeed, people with special needs and disabilities is a significant one in the context of housing. I will try to directly address some of the points that have been raised.

If I may, I wish to refer to the issue of ceiling hoists. This is someting I want to see included. We have pretty much concluded our work in housing for some time now. We co-operated with the HSE in respect of training people to use the hoists. That work is close to being concluded. We have had good co-operation from the HSE. It would be a significant step forward for what is included. As people get older, particularly those who have no mobility at all, it puts much additional pressure on families. I visited homes in my constituency and across the country, and I want to see that done. I want to put that on the record of the House. We have had decent co-operation from the HSE heretofore, but we need to bring the matter to a conclusion now.

Deputies will know that in Housing for All we have committed to a review of housing adaption grants for older people and those with disabilities. The review is under way right now, which is why the motion is very timely. The review continues to be informed by ongoing engagement with external stakeholders, which is also very important. Deputies Canney, Shanahan, Murphy and Denis Naughten mentioned - and it has been raised with us as well - that the people who are more positively affected by getting the grant are the ones who know what works and what does not. That is why we are engaging with the Disability Federation of Ireland, the Irish Wheelchair Association and the Jack and Jill Children’s Foundation, to name but a few.

Formal submissions will be invited very shortly in relation to the review. When some people hear the word “review”, they think it is only a review and wonder when things will be done. I want the review completed this year. It will contemplate areas such as income thresholds, which have not been looked at in ten or 11 years, the grant limits and the application and decision-making processes, including all of the supplementary documentation that is required from time to time. We also need to see consistency of approach across our local authorities. I will address that matter in a moment. The review will be completed by the end of the year. It is a priority for me and my colleagues to get that done. I am very focused on concrete action that can be taken to improve the process. When people get the grants, they work. Since this scheme was introduced, 110,000 families have been able to have their homes adapted. As Deputy Canney stated, people can live and stay in their homes with dignity. That is where people want to be. If they can, we will facilitate that.

I see Deputy Daly is back in the House. I just mentioned the inclusion of the hoist, work on which I am concluding. I need co-operation from the HSE, which we are getting. We are working through that and I want to see it done.

The majority of local authorities have adapted their approach as part of a streamlined application process to ensure that all available resources are targeted towards those who need it most, including prioritisation on the grounds of medical and financial needs. While that has improved across many local authorities, we need to ensure there is consistency. We need to look at those who are currently in hospital or in step-down care and how they can be prioritised to get the work done in order that they can get back home.

That does not always happen in the application process. I should add that this is not just in the gift of the local authority and it requires co-operation from occupational therapists, who are also under pressure, to provide the reports indicating the necessary, appropriate or suitable adaptation. We have people in hospital, step-down or longer-term care and if their homes could be adapted, they would be back home. It is the type of process we will work through.

I am really conscious of the social benefit that accrues from the scheme. To be very fair, as I said at the outset, everybody who contributed to the debate did so in a very constructive way. People recognise the scheme is good and the principle is very good. As schemes evolve, they provide lessons, and that is why the review that will be under way really shortly is important. We will be able to say what works well, what does not and how we can change things.

I have already mentioned that 110,000 households have benefitted from this grant scheme, which is a lot of households. It is good and we want to do more. How will we do that? We will do more by improving the process and increasing funding as well. Looking back to 2013, we went from a base of €43 million to €81 million in 2022. As has been recognised as well, it is a very significant increase to be able to ensure we can do more work for more people. The same approach is being taken in supports for adaptations to local authority housing under the disabled person grant, which has increased from just over €15 million in 2019 to €24 million at the end of 2021. These exemplify real and substantial benefits accruing to people.

As well as increased funding, we are also working closely with local authorities to spend over the year and achieve full drawdown. That is to allow some discretion within local authorities. Many of them manage this very well and we give line budgets without micromanaging but I am nonetheless responsible for the scheme. However, some specific cases have been raised today and we expect the decision makers at local level to make appropriate and responsible decisions as well. There is, nonetheless, discretion provided. Grants for older people were mentioned earlier but some people under 66 can access them in certain cases. I have seen such a case in my constituency of Dublin Fingal. The discretion is used but we must tighten up the process to ensure there is consistency in approach.

We monitor the administration of the scheme across the board. If there are any issues noted by Teachtaí in their constituency work that they might raise with local authorities, they may also feed examples to us and it will inform our review as well. Our ageing population policy statement also emphasises my Department's commitment to streamlining the application process. That must be done and it will be concluded as part of the review.

In the past six months, officials from my Department have completed virtual meetings with representatives of all 31 local authorities. The focus of this effort is identifying the inconsistencies. We have been doing that on a face-to-face basis, albeit virtually, to ensure grants are more accessible. There is no desire in any way, shape or form, for the Government to save money in this space.

The only two comments today I reject came from Deputies Paul Murphy and Mick Barry, and they did not speak to the reality. They did not recognise the fact that we cannot just set up a State building agency overnight and employ people or local authorities overnight to do all the work being done elsewhere. I should add that the work is done by small contractors, many of which are local to the job and know the people for whom they are working. They know the area and, in the main, such a process works very well. There has been pressure on labour and I am thankful that in the construction sector we have now increased the workforce by approximately 10,000 on pre-pandemic levels. We need more, however, as we are asking a lot of that sector and our local authorities.

On the broader front, under the national housing strategy for disabled people, which runs from 2022 to 2027 and which I launched earlier this year, work is currently being advanced in the first instance with the Housing Agency, including Mr. Bob Jordan and his team working on the implementation plan. We are not waiting for the review for that to be done. The plan will be based on the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I acknowledge and welcome the inclusion of that in the motion today. Consideration will be given to the principles of the convention as part of the review of the grant scheme itself.

On the budget of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, it has been mentioned that just short of €120 million has been allocated to provide energy efficiency upgrades to households at risk of energy poverty. Some were saying earlier - not from the Regional Group benches I should add - that the budget was decreasing year-on-year but that is not true. We will deliver more than 5,100 free upgrades under the SEAI energy poverty schemes in 2022, up from 2,200 in 2021. It is a significant increase and it means the total Government retrofit budget of €203 million will be spent on dedicated energy poverty schemes and local authority retrofits.

I thank the Deputies for moving the motion and their ongoing engagement on this matter. As there is such interest in the topic, we should discuss the review in the Dáil after it is published and plot the next step forward on its implementation.

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