Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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517. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will consider providing extra funding for the housing aid for older people scheme to Limerick City Council in view of the fact that the backlog of applications is such that they are only now dealing with persons who applied in 2011; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31716/13]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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On 22 February 2013, I announced capital allocations to local authorities under the suite of Grants for Older People and People with a Disability amounting to €42.750 million. This year I allocated local authorities the full amount of their contractual commitments, which in the case of Limerick City Council amounted to €149,046. The balance of the available funding was allocated on the basis of each authority’s share of the new applications on hand in January 2013. This brought Limerick City Council’s overall allocation to €1,010,885.

A small capital reserve was set aside to deal with any acute or particular difficulty which might arise in the operation of the schemes over the course of the year. Limerick City Council applied for additional funding from this reserve and was notified of a supplementary allocation of €101,990 on 22 April 2013, bringing the Council’s overall allocation for 2013 to € 1,112,875. My Department is closely monitoring expenditure across all the measures under the housing programme. I will consider requests from local authorities for further funds to be allocated to the grants measure in the event of savings arising elsewhere.