Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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464. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the steps he will take to ensure that there are no further fatalities as a result of sub-standard local authority housing stock; his proposals to ensure that all local authority housing stock receive the required efficiency upgrades; the way he proposes that local authority housing tenants deal with their heating needs when they have so far been left for years waiting for improvement works to be carried out; his proposals for the housing aid for older people scheme to ensure that local authorities receive sufficient funding to deal with their backlog of applications; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2974/13]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Local authorities, as landlords and owners of their social housing stock, are responsible for the management, maintenance and repair of rented properties, including necessary maintenance and repair works to heating systems.

Under my Department's Social Housing Investment Programme, local authorities are allocated capital funding each year in respect of a range of measures to improve the standard and overall quality of their social housing stock, including the regeneration of large social housing estates and flat complexes, estate- wide remedial works schemes, a retrofitting measure to improve the energy efficiency of older apartments and houses, and funding for extensions and adaptations to meet the needs of tenants with a disability etc.

Under the Energy Efficiency measure my Department provides a grant of up to €15,000 per house, depending on the energy improvement achieved, for necessary works such as attic and wall insulation, the replacement of windows and external doors and the fitting of energy-efficient condensing boilers, with a further grant of up to €3,000 where additional essential works are needed. Since the inception of the scheme in 2009, over 7,760 units have been improved.

My Department remains committed to providing financial assistance to older people and people with a disability who wish to carry out essential repairs, extensions/adaptations to their homes in order to meet their accommodation needs. Work is currently underway on preparing the capital allocations under the housing programme for 2013, including the suite of Grants for Older People and People with a Disability. As part of this process, my Department requested local authorities earlier this month to submit details of their capital requirements under the grants schemes. This information is being assessed at present. I intend to announce details of the capital allocations to individual authorities as soon as possible.