Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The RTE investigations unit this week raised the issue of disabled person’s grants and housing adaptation grants. For the past few years these have been in very short supply in County Meath. There have been long delays. I have seen people lying in beds who cannot leave their homes because essential work cannot be done to their houses. According to the RTE investigations unit, Meath receives the lowest amount of disabled person grants per head of population. It receives €3.11 per head compared with Mayo which receives €17.5 per head and Limerick, the home of the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government with responsibility for housing, of the time, €16.79 per head, and Kildare, which has a lower age profile, receives €8.65 per head, that is almost treble what Meath receives.

People are housebound or may not be able to go upstairs, use a bathroom properly or shower themselves because they cannot step into a bath. Those are the practical difficulties people in Meath face because it is starved of funding. Why does Meath get such little funding? Is it the Government’s fault? Does the local authority have a role? Should it give more matching funding? I would like to know this so that I can make the case to it.

As we speak, elderly and disabled people are prevented from being fully mobile in their homes or living properly because there is a severe shortage of these grants. In one house a man has lain in bed for some time due to his illness. Adaptation works were due to be done to make it possible for his family to take him out of the house with relative ease. That has been going on for at least year and work started recently. In another case a person had both legs amputated and the work took a long time although the council did regard that as a very serious case. That is the level of seriousness that qualifies one for an adaptation grant. I and the people of Meath would like answers from the Minister of State. If he is going to blame the local authority I will tell the local authority it needs to put in more matching funding.