Kathleen O'Meara (Labour)

I welcome the Minister to the House to discuss the operation of the physically disabled person's grant. I refer specifically to the North Tipperary County Council area, which is the area with which I am familiar, and what has happened to the grant in that county in recent times. After being warned as part of our Estimates discussion in December, at the January meeting of the county council we were told that it was finding it necessary to suspend the operation of the grant in the area due to financial constraints, and that as of that date, more than two weeks ago, the council would not be able to process any new applications but would only honour applications which had been fully accepted, with planning permission approved where necessary, health board approval gained and tenders accepted – in other words, only where the work was almost ready to go ahead would the council proceed, and then only because it felt it had no other option under the law.