asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will make a special grant available to those in receipt of social welfare assistance to install essential services such as ESB and water supplies to their homes where this need arises.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Social Welfare Assistance.
11.
Mr. Moynihan
My Department do not have a scheme of special grants for the purposes mentioned in the question nor is it intended to provide one. I understand, however, that the Department of the Environment provide grants for the installation of water supplies under their house improvements grants scheme.
There is a provision in the supplementary welfare allowances scheme which enables a health board, in any case where they consider it reasonable, to make a single payment to meet an exceptional need. In order to obtain assistance under this provision, however, it would be a matter for the applicant to establish to the satisfaction of the health board that an exceptional need exists.
Because of service charges and connection fees for a water supply, it could cost a social welfare recipient anything up to £700 to have these services installed. It could cost anything up to £2,000 to have an ESB service installed. The income of social welfare recipients is not sufficient to enable them to pay for those charges. The Minister should make some money available for those people. In rural areas the supply is a long distance away and the charges are greater than they are in other areas. Will the Minister notify the councils that they should give special consideration to those people?
We have the house improvement grant scheme and schemes are also operated by the local authorities for people who are partially disabled. These schemes have been administered excellently by the various local authorities in conjunction with the health boards who make the recommendations. Generally speaking, people in receipt of social welfare disability payments of a permenent nature would fall to be considered, provided other conditions are satisfied. Other schemes are operated for the elderly, but there is no special grant available for general social welfare recipients such as an unemployed person in receipt of unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance from this Department. It would take a major kind of scheme to make such a grant available and to administer it, and it would be very difficult to establish the eligibility of people.
People who have been provided with a bathroom are now faced with the problem that they have to pay for connection to the main water supply. They have to pay so much to the county council to have those connections made. They have availed of a grant and they now have a bathroom. Now they will have to pay the council about £700 for connection to the main water supply.
This would be a matter for the various local authorities. My experience has been that local authorities and health boards have administered these grants in an excellent way. They have helped many people to obtain these essential services at little or no cost. For ESB connection a supplementary welfare allowance may be applied for and if following an investigation it is proved to be an exceptional need, assistance is granted.