Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Malcolm Noonan, to the House for what is a very important Commencement matter. This is the third time since I was elected to this House that I have raised this matter. We discussed this on the last day the Minister of State was here and he has heard of similar experiences in his own offices. Not a day goes by but I deal with an application for, or a query about, a housing aid or housing adaptation grant. As I have said, and will put on record again, these are very worthwhile grants that can change people's lives in so many ways. More importantly, as I have said, they are grants that can keep people from hospital beds and, as everyone wants, allow them to stay in their own homes.

The problem is that the limits remain at €30,000 for the housing adaptation grant and €8,000 for the housing aid grant. Basically, given the building quotes that are coming in, people and their families simply cannot afford the shortfall and a lot of this work is not happening at the moment. The last time we spoke, the Minister of State said he has had similar experiences coming through his own offices. I will give the example of one of the cases I am dealing with at the moment. A lady in Newbridge, County Kildare, has been offered a grant of €30,000 but the cheapest quote she can get is €58,000. There is no way that she or her family can fund the balance, and that is the cheapest quote she has had, with many builders quoting €60,000 to €70,000, and €75,000 the highest quote that she has got. She and her family have looked everywhere to try to fund this life-changing grant application but, unfortunately, they have not been able to come up with the money. It is such vulnerable people that I am talking about today.

The housing aid grant is also a great grant in all respects but, again, quotes are coming in for €12,000 to €14,000, and people are simply not able to afford the balance in order to make the changes to a room or bathroom or put in windows that will make their house more secure. I want to put on record, as I have always done on previous Commencement matters, that the staff who deal daily with these queries and applications go above and beyond. Unfortunately, when I deal with them now, I find there are backlogs because they are inundated with queries about this grant. Many of the local authorities I have spoken to are changing or adapting their rules to try to accommodate this grant, and my own local authority in Kildare is one of those. I have spoken to staff extensively in regard to this grant. To quote directly from an Oireachtas meeting and subsequent correspondence I have had with them, I am told they are doing this to deal with an ageing population and that in order to address the increase in applications for these grants, it is necessary to prioritise certain categories of work. To take the windows grant as an example, they are now looking to prioritise single-glazed windows or timber-frame windows over other applications.

We are in the middle of an economic crisis but, more importantly, a climate crisis where we are talking about retrofitting, as the Minister of State, more than anyone else, will know. I engaged with the SEAI at a meeting of the Oireachtas social protection committee and I was told that it does not do a windows grant. Therefore, this is the only grant people can apply for but it has not been changed for many years. Unfortunately, people are going into hospital because they cannot use the adaptation grant to stay in their own homes.

I hope the Minister of State will bring good news today. I have raised this a number of times. I am told there is a report and I look forward to some good news today, on St. Brigid’s Day.