Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. The issue I am raising relates to the allocation of funding to local authorities for house adaptation work. One local authority with which I am dealing was allocated something in the region of €1.9 million last year and that money was allocated to people who owned their own houses to do adaptation work on them. The same local authority received only €560,000 for carrying out adaptation work on local authority houses. I am raising this issue because there is a huge backlog in respect of adaptation work required in respect of local authority houses.

One case with which I am dealing involves a family where the child has serious intellectual and physical disabilities. In July 2008, the family was advised that the house needed to be adapted because the child has to be lifted out of bed every morning, washed, and tube fed. There is a great deal of work involved in that. The house in which the family lives is not adequate for their needs. In fairness, after seven and a half years and as a result of pressure from me - which the media highlighted - the local authority has responded and the work is now being done. However, seven and a half years is a significant period to wait for work to be done. There is a now a waiting list with Cork City Council of between seven and eight years for adaptation work in respect of local authority houses. I am asking that for this year - I am not asking for every year, just this year - local authorities would be entitled to use the money allocated to them in whatever way they can in order to reduce the waiting time to get adaptation work done on local authority houses. It is in that context that I am raising this matter. Local authorities need to deal with the backlog. The only way this can be done is by giving priority to local authority housing for one year.