Carol Nolan (Offaly, Independent)
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608. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the amount of funding allocated to local authorities for housing adaptation grants since 2016. [16531/19]

Carol Nolan (Offaly, Independent)
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609. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if the amount of funding being allocated to housing adaptation grants through local authorities will be increased in budget 2020. [16532/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 608 and 609 together.

The funding provided for the Housing Adaptation Grants for Older People and People with a Disability Scheme to support people living in private houses, has increased year on year since 2014. From a funding level in 2013 of €43 million, I have made a total of €71.25 million available nationally in 2019 for the schemes, which is an increase of some 8% on the 2018 funding.

Information on these grant schemes, including the numbers of grants funded per annum and the funding provided to each local authority since 2016, is available on my Department’s website at the following link: .

Consistent with the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan, I will give further consideration to increasing this funding over the coming year. I am conscious of the social benefit accruing from these grants in terms of helping older people and people with a disability to remain living independently in their own homes. My Department works closely with the local authorities to achieve a full drawdown of the available funding each year.  This allows any underspends to be redistributed to local authorities with high levels of grant activity who seek additional funding.