Government urged to pay all disability home grant

The Disability Federation of Ireland (DFI) has called on the Government to stop local authorities funding housing grants for the disabled.

The DFI told an Oireachtas committee yesterday that the grant for adapting houses for people with mobility impairment was co-funded, two-thirds by Government and one-third by the local authority.

However, because of the demand for house conversions, many local authorities could not meet their part of the grant, and end up returning Government funds at the end of each year.

"I don't believe in this country there is any consistency between local authorities in the way they deal with this grant," Mr Nick Killian, a DFI board member, told the Joint Committee on Environment and Local Government.

"Some local authorities don't have the balance of 33 per cent, and some local authorities have sent back the Government funding."

Mr Killian, who is the chief executive of the Irish Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus, said this resulted in more disabled people waiting for two years or more for the grants.

In the meantime they were living in "inaccessible, unsuitable and potentially dangerous homes".

Others were left waiting in hospitals or placed inappropriately in nursing homes because their houses were not habitable without adaptation.

He said the current system was "no longer capable or suitable" of dealing with people's needs, and it should be replaced by 100 per cent funding from the Department of the Environment.

Mr Killian said even when people did receive the grant, the amount was usually too low to pay for the necessary adaptations.

The maximum grant was €20,320, and because 70 per cent of people with disabilities were unemployed, few could make up the shortfall.

"Instead of a grant the Government should fund 100 per cent of the actual cost of approved building work on the basis of need."

He said there was a lack of transparency in the way the grant was allocated, and an absence of any structured appeals system.

The difficulties in dealing with the system were exacerbated by the "total lack of consultation with the voluntary sector from the Department of the Environment".