Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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355. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will support a ring-fenced funding allocation of the disabled persons grant scheme and improvement works for use when adapting housing to bespoke requirements of an applicant who is blind or vision impaired; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46484/21]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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My Department provides funding to local authorities under the Disabled Persons Grants scheme to carry out works on social housing stock to address the needs of older people, people with a disability or overcrowded situations. The programme is 90% funded by the Department with a 10% contribution from the Local Authority.

My Department is very supportive of work in this area and has provided funding which has been increasing year on year to help meet the needs of local authority tenants. The detailed administration of this Scheme including assessment, approval and prioritisation is the responsibility of local authorities.

My Department's approach every year is to issue a single full year allocation to each local authority, so they can plan, prioritise and implement the programme. Over the course of the year, my Department works closely with the local authorities to monitor spend and to achieve a full drawdown of the available funding. This means that if underspends arise on the part of some local authorities, they can be redistributed to other authorities. If a local authority is dealing with a high level of applications, further additional funding can be requested from my Department and every effort will be made to accede to any such request.