Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I received correspondence from Cavan County Council the week before last indicating its intention to temporarily pause private housing grant schemes. I refer to the housing adaptation grants for older people and disabled people, the mobility aid grants and housing aid for older people. The reason the council needs to pause the grants with immediate effect is that it has run out of funding. It has made a submission to the Department of housing seeking further funding. I support that submission today and call on the Minister for housing to provide the funding because it is very early in the year for the council to have to cease processing grants. It will continue to process grant applications with priority 1 status but fulfilling all the requests under priority 1 is also funding dependent. The grants are very important because they allow older people and disabled people to continue living in their own homes. They reduce the possibility of accidents and prevent hospitalisation, nursing home care and the requirement for home care. It is very important that sufficient funding be given to Cavan County Council and indeed other councils that may find themselves in a similar situation to ensure they can actually process the grant applications they receive and allow people to continue to live in their own homes.