Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 20 Oct 1992

Vol. 423 No. 8

Written Answers. - Funding for Housing Grant Schemes.

John Connor

Question:

36 Mr. Connor asked the Minister for the Environment if his attention has been drawn to the fact that local authorities, particularly those authorities like County Roscommon where the proportion of elderly people is well above the average, are experiencing severe difficulties in funding their housing grant schemes for the elderly, the essential repairs grant scheme, and other such schemes, resulting in a large decline in the numbers qualifying for these schemes in recent years and serious injustice in many deserving cases.

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment (Mr. D. Wallace)

Expenditure by local authorities on essential repairs and other grant schemes is financed from their own capital or revenue resources, or by borrowing from the Housing Finance Agency, or a combination of these methods. In the case of the essential repairs grants scheme, my Department recoups up to half the expenditure subject to a maximum of £600 in any one case.

Capital expenditure on these grants, together with local authority house purchase and improvement loans, is subject to the capital allocation for these purposes notified to the local authority annually. Local authorities are facilitated, as far as possible, in providing increased capital allocations to meet demands for grant expenditure. Roscommon County Council have not sought an increase in their capital allocation for 1992. Additional finance required for this purpose can be obtained by borrowing from the HFA.

Apart from the essential repairs grants scheme, a sum of £2 million has been provided for the Special Task Force for the Elderly in 1992. The Task Force, which operates through the health boards, arranges necessary improvement works to the accommodation of elderly persons living alone at no cost to the beneficiary.