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Services for People with Disabilities.

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 March 2004

Tuesday, 23 March 2004

Questions (559)

David Stanton

Question:

556 Mr. Stanton asked the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the amount of money allocated by his Department in 2003 and 2004 to fund directly services for persons with disabilities and the amount of money allocated to enabling persons with disabilities to access more easily the services of his Department. [8648/04]

View answer

Written answers

Spending by my Department which benefits people with disabilities cannot readily be disaggregated, as many of the relevant measures benefit other groups such as elderly persons or persons who are disadvantaged in different ways. Details of the different measures are set out below; provisional outturn figures are provided for 2003, and estimates for the current year.

Voluntary housing capital assistance scheme, B.1.4 — €95.864 million in 2003 and €99.123 million in 2004. This measure includes provision for grants to local authorities under section 15 of the Housing Act 1988 to enable them to advance loans to approved voluntary organisations providing housing for the elderly, homeless, disabled and other disadvantaged persons under the voluntary housing capital assistance scheme.

Disabled persons-essential repairs grants, B.2.2 — €43.841 million in 2003 and €49.400 million in 2004. These schemes include provision for partial recoupment to local authorities regarding grants for adapting a dwelling house to cater for the needs of a disabled person; and prolonging the life of houses, mainly of elderly persons, which are in need of repair.

Communal facilities in voluntary housing schemes, B.4 — €2.063 million in 2003 and 2.070 million in 2004. Funding is provided towards the capital costs of providing communal facilities in both new and existing voluntary housing schemes, some of which benefit elderly and disabled persons.

Public library service, F.2.2 — €0.051 million in 2003 and €0.389 million in 2004. Funding totalling €440,000 is available to library authorities for the provision of PC-based optical scanning facilities for use by visually impaired persons. A grant of up to €4,400 is payable for the provision of the facilities in up to 100 library branches. Those facilities may also be used to assist persons with learning disabilities.

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