PJ Murphy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, for being here this morning to take this Commencement matter. I am here to speak about the croí cónaithe property refurbishment grant and the criteria for the drawdown of payment after work has been completed. As things stand, there is a requirement that the applicant submits receipts for every individual piece of material and labour used in the refurbishment of the property in order to draw down the reimbursement payment. In turn, it is a requirement of a member of the clerical staff of the local authority to go through and assess every one of those receipts in advance of approving the payment. Assessing all of this puts a massive burden on the local authority in terms of manpower. In the vast majority of local authorities around the country, only one or possibly two additional staff members have been given to oversee the croí cónaithe scheme and its smooth working.

I understand there is clearly a need to ensure that all materials and labour are procured from tax compliant and legitimate sources but this concern could be addressed post payment by selecting a sample number of random applicants to be assessed or examined. This would act as a deterrent to ensure no non-legitimate sources of material or labour are used. This system is used in many Department of agriculture payment systems. If we were to change the system of examining the receipts and invoices to a sample-based system, we would take out an awful lot of the delays in payments to applicants. These delays put a lot of financial pressure on people. They cause a need for bridge funding to be secured by the people going ahead with the projects and sometimes it is not easy to get this funding. In many cases, it causes delayed payments to the tradesmen who have done the work as people wait to receive the reimbursement. I am anxious that we look at addressing this and perhaps use a similar system to what is proposed for the diesel scheme being put in place for farmers and agricultural contractors. This will involve a sampling of 5% of the applicants post payment.