asked the Minister for the Environment the number of applicants who failed to qualify for the £5,000 surrender grant for vacating local authority houses; and if he will agree to reconsider them for payment due to the short notice of its introduction.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - £5,000 Grant.
6.
I have no information on the numbers of applicants who failed to qualify for the £5,000 grant since the processing of applications is a matter for local authorities. I have no proposals at this stage to change the terms of the scheme.
Unfortunately, Deputy O'Keeffe is unable to be present but he had a number of cases of people who had just missed out on getting the £5,000 having surrendered the tenancy of their local authority house a short time before the new grant scheme was announced. Deputy O'Keeffe wanted me to ask the Minister to alter the scheme to enable that small number of people who had been denied the grant the opportunity to benefit under the scheme.
I must disappoint the Deputy because the operative date of this scheme, which is probably the cause of the failure to qualify, is the date when the introduction of the scheme was first announced, the date of the publication of the national plan. I am not in a position to change that date and I am sorry that has to be the case. We have set out the terms and details of the grant conditions and at this stage I would not be in a position to make changes in those conditions.