Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The applicants fall into three different categories. The first is priority one, where the applicant is terminally ill, needs a full-time family carer or where adaptation of facilities will allow discharge from hospital. Most of the applications I deal with are priority two, where people are mobile but need assistance in accessing washing and toilet facilities and bedrooms, and where, without the adaptations, the disabled person's ability to function independently is hindered absolutely and unacceptably. It is not, therefore, a good system because it is not working well. There are 3,500 known applicants waiting for the county council to give them the money to go ahead.

Part of the problem is that the county councils have to provide 20% of the funding themselves. I think the Minister of State has a report on his desk which was promised by the end of 2022. I got a reply in June that it would be published imminently, but it remains hidden like the third secret of Fatima. What the hell is going on in the Minister of State's Department? Why is the money not being spent? There is a golden opportunity now to address an appalling wrong. Looking at the television recently, I saw a middle-aged or elderly man going upstairs with a disability who was barely able to move. He was breathless and harassed by the lack of accommodation for him downstairs. We need to replicate that situation some 3,500 times.

In my county, there are 562 applicants on a waiting list. This is a shocking figure, but, wait for it, Louth County Council, in its wisdom, decided some months ago that anybody else who applies can take their applications back and apply again on 1 January 2024. I have met many of these people and this situation is entirely and absolutely unacceptable. The Minister of State's report should identify how the system must change. It must insist on equality of treatment, regardless of where anyone lives or what county they may be in, and whether they are on the waiting list. If people fall into priorities one, two and three, then they should get their grants, and this should be the beginning and the end of it.

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