Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the fact that it is going to be published in a few weeks, and I sincerely hope that timeline is adhered to because we are a year past the expected date of publication. I hope the plan will see the lack of co-ordination which has existed between housing and other supports being addressed as well. Providing housing is one thing but unless one provides the personal assistance service, for example, or the home care supports, people cannot live independently in the community without them. It is important to ensure that the implementation plan addresses all of those issues and ensures there is co-ordination and co-operation across Departments.

Frequently, I hear of people with disabilities typically being on a social housing waiting list for longer than others and the hold-up is often because even if the council provides the housing, the HSE, other agency, Department or whatever is not prepared to provide the home supports or it is vice versa, one blames the other and then nothing gets delivered. I hope the strategy will address that.

Disability must be mainstreamed in all housing policy, including future-proofing the new housing stock that is currently being built under Housing for All by building houses to universal design plus plus. We are getting older, our population is living longer, and many of us will have mobility issues in the future, so if our house is universally designed to start with, it will be much easier to adapt if needed in the future. Part M of the Building Regulations currently only requires housing to be wheelchair-visitable, not wheelchair-liveable. There is an urgent need to review those guidelines and reform the legislation.

A few of the housing adaption grants were started by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage last year, and we have not yet seen the outcome of this review. There are many issues with that grant as well. The maximum grant needs to increase significantly. The current level is €30,000, but that is far below what is required, especially with the current rise in costs of construction. The income threshold and the means test are problematic and do not reflect the extra cost of disability, which we know from the Indecon report published in 2021, which showed the cost of disability is anywhere from €8,700 to €12,300 per year, depending on the level and severity of the disability. I thank the Minister of State.

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