Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 19 Nov 2002

Vol. 557 No. 4

Housing Aid for the Elderly.

Mr. Allen

In response to a parliamentary question I submitted to the Minister for the Environment and Local Government in October 2002, I was informed there were 9,700 people waiting to have essential repairs carried out on their homes. I know from experience that some of them are waiting for well over two years to have vital work carried out.

The most recent letter I received about the special housing aid for the elderly scheme was from a senior environmental health officer in the Southern Health Board regarding a constituent of mine. The letter stated that the Southern Health Board was operating the scheme on behalf of the Department of the Environment and Local Government and that all the 2001 funding received by the health board had been allocated. The letter stated that the application of the 80 year old woman could not be approved because of lack of funds. The only hope offered to the elderly lady, living in appalling conditions, was that next year's allocation might be known by February and that she would be contacted afterwards with an up-to-date evaluation.

There is such a demand on the scheme that the allocation made to most health boards was exhausted early in the year. The Southern Health Board had 907 persons waiting to have work carried out and an average of 20 jobs were completed per month or 240 per year. This means that the elderly people in Cork and Kerry can expect to wait between two and four years to have essential work carried out. The reality is that many of these elderly people will have died before their turn comes.

In June 2002 there were 9,707 elderly people waiting for repairs, 1,183 in the East Coast Area Health Board, 1,077 in the Midland Health Board, 1,385 in the Mid-Western Area Health Board, 1,582 in the North-Eastern Health Board, 893 in the North-Western Health Board, 1,208 in the South-Eastern Health Board, 907 in the Southern Health Board and 1,472 in the Western Health Board.

This neglect of the elderly is another feature of the hidden Ireland that Ministers who are insulated by the champagne bubbles and celebratory balloons tend to ignore. Added to the 9,700 applications under the housing aid for the elderly scheme, there are a further 6,700 applications with local authorities under the disabled person's grant scheme.

I advocate that the Ministers for the Environment and Local Government and Health and Children get their act together and co-ordinate their efforts to have one authority administer an amalgamated scheme. It is cumbersome and inefficient to have health boards administering a scheme funded by the Department of the Environment and Local Government. The victims of underfunding and inefficiencies are the elderly. They built the economy and are now being told to get in line and wait their turn for help that would add much to their quality of life, help that will arrive too late in many cases.

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government (Mr. N. Ahern)

I thank Deputy Allen for raising the matter and am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the scheme, which is one of the schemes run under the Department.

The task force on special housing aid for the elderly was set up in 1982 to undertake an emergency programme to improve the housing conditions of elderly persons living alone in unfit or unsanitary accommodation. Typically, aid is available for necessary repairs to make a dwelling habitable for the lifetime of the occupant. In 2000 the scheme was extended to include the provision of suitable heating systems where necessary to meet the needs of elderly persons.

The scheme is administered by the task force, which includes representatives from a number of Departments and agencies – the Department of the Environment and Local Government, Health and Children and Social Community and Family Affairs, FÁS, ALONE, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and two local authorities, Dublin Corporation and Cork County Council. In the interests of elderly persons whose housing conditions are improved under the scheme, the scheme has since its inception been administered with flexibility and a minimum of bureaucracy. Over the years, health boards have, within the terms of the guidelines, evolved a priority list to ensure that the most urgent cases are dealt with as quickly as possible.

The scheme is operated on the ground by the community care departments of health boards which use various mechanisms to carry out the work under the scheme, including contractors and FÁS workers. A grant-based approach is adopted in the operation of the scheme. The mechanisms may vary from one health board area to another. In the Dublin area, FÁS workers were mainly used, but that system seems to be very much in decline and it is being operated by other means. Health boards have been asked by the task force to use a combination of these approaches, with the most suitable being applied as appropriate in individual cases.

Funding has increased significantly although the fund is still relatively small. In 1997 it was £4 million and this year it is €11.9 million. The allocations to the boards are determined by the task force taking account of the funding available. It is done not on the basis of a geographical spread of the population, but on the statistical returns received from the health boards. The health boards have a vested interest in putting forward the maximum number of cases. The scheme is regarded as very effective and public representatives always speak very highly of it. It is said that 47,000 cases have been dealt with over 20 years.

Mr. Allen

The scheme is a good one but the problem is that there is not enough money.

Mr. N. Ahern

I accept that. I am not sure if the scheme is dealt with in the same way throughout the country. In my city council area many of the things we would have tried to do under this scheme in the past couple of years have been done under the essential repairs grant scheme. I sometimes wonder if it was right for this scheme to become involved in central heating because in the Eastern Regional Health Authority Area this aspect has quickly taken up much of the funding. Perhaps the scheme should concentrate on the smaller things and get value for money. In some parts of the country the essential repairs grant scheme has been extended in tandem with the disabled persons' grant scheme and they might be a more appropriate mechanism for getting the bigger jobs done.

I will take a continuing interest in this area because traditionally the special housing aid for the elderly scheme was geared towards smaller jobs. Given the lack of FÁS workers to do that kind of work the scheme may have been extended to the bigger jobs, which is using up the available funds. Many local authorities have problems with the essential repairs grant scheme and the disabled persons' grant scheme in that they are not allocating enough money to them from their own funds. There is no difficulty from the Department's point of view, which allocates as much as two thirds of the funding. The funding allocation for next year will be approximately €11 million, which is much the same as this year. Funding for the housing aid for the elderly scheme has not increased but it has for the essential repairs grant scheme and the disabled persons' grant scheme, which constitutes the bigger fund. Perhaps the mix between all three schemes is wrong and I will address that aspect.

I question whether it is right for the housing aid for the elderly scheme to become involved in the bigger jobs. Deputies with their own contacts or who are involved in the task force may have a view on this. Perhaps it would be better to use the other two schemes for the bigger jobs and confine this scheme for what it was intended and what it was good at. I will consider the matter further and see what can be done.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.45 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 20 November 2002.