Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and wish him well in the development of the new document on housing. Many of the items I wanted to mention have been raised already. I thank Senators John Dolan and Grace O'Sullivan and the Independent Senators for bringing forward this motion, which is very welcome and timely. As somebody who was a member of a local authority and who has been involved in a number of disability-related issues over the past two to three years, I have found the process of seeking assistance for adaptation work in local authority houses extremely frustrating, as have many families dealing with local authorities.I was forced to take two particular cases to the Ombudsman to assist families in getting work done. One family received a letter from the local authority in July 2008 confirming that they were on the list for adaptation work. They had a child with severe intellectual and physical disabilities. They had the full support of the public health nurse and an organisation assisting them with the care of their child. I came across them six years after they were told they were on the list for adaptation work, but no such work had been done. I corresponded with a local authority for eight months, but still nothing was done. As a result, it ended up going to the Ombudsman before any work was undertaken.

I am glad to report that the necessary was done in the house to make it that much easier for the family to look after that child. It was outrageous, however, that it took a total of seven and a half years from the initial application to the completion of the work, despite the family having full support. There was clear evidence that what this family was doing was way beyond the call of duty. If their child was in State care, it would cost about €2,500 to €3,000 per week to provide the level of care that the parents were providing. Despite that, they had to fight for seven and a half years before the necessary work was completed.

There is supposed to be an access officer in each local authority, but local authorities around the country have totally different definitions as to what is an access officer's role. My understanding from the legislation is that the access officer not only examines access to public buildings for people with disabilities, but also access to all local authority services. For example, I questioned a number of different local authorities and one of them said the access officer had been involved in two projects for the entire 12 months, costing a total of €4,000. I am not saying that the access officer was not doing other work, but that was their sole contribution to access for people with disabilities in that 12-month period.

I contacted the Disability Authority concerning the role of access officers. We passed legislation on this, but what is their role? In particular, it applies to ensuring that there is someone within a local authority to help people with disabilities and to fight their corner. The Minister's Department should now examine the legislation to ascertain whether it is adequate in clearly defining the access officer's role. It should be clearly stated that someone in a local authority is prepared to put forward the best possible case for people with disabilities. We urgently need to do this.

In recent years, we have made a lot of progress but there are still many areas that we tend to park and say they are something we will get around to doing. We have a great opportunity to act now that better funding is being provided to local authorities. It is also about co-ordination nationally and locally to ensure that local authorities which do not follow through on this role are brought to heel.

In dealing with adaptation grants, I found that some local authorities had done their plan of action as far back as November or December of the previous year regarding what work they needed to do on houses. Other authorities, however, waited until the Department said that money would be available for such work and sought submissions. Those submissions took a further three or four months to arrive in the Department. We need to clearly set out for local authorities what funding will be made available for adaptation work over the next three to four years so that long-term planning can ensue.

Some local authorities may say they cannot undertake adaptation work because they do not know how much funding is available. Other authorities say that while they receive funding for adaptation work in June or July, they are unable to use it by the end of December and therefore must refund the money to the Department. We should ensure that local authorities have no excuse for refunding money.

Senators have made good contributions to this debate covering various areas. The point was made concerning Part V, that money which is supposed to be used for infrastructural work is not left there for a further three to four years when it could be used urgently for local authority houses.

A Senator mentioned four-bedroom houses which have a single occupant who may wish to downsize. I came across this matter as recently as last weekend while doing clinics. They may be waiting to downsize on a housing list for five or six years, but the local authority is not responding. Such a person may be quite prepared to take a two-bedroom or smaller house, thus freeing up a four-bedroom house. I have met a number of people in my own local authority area who are in that position. Local authorities have the requisite powers but appear slow to react, even though it would mean making a three or four-bedroom house immediately available for a family. However, I know that this is slightly moving away from the point of this debate.

I welcome the debate and feel it is important for us to identify the areas where work is not being done. We must ensure that available funding is used in a timely manner so that necessary works can be carried out.