Housing Adaptations and disabled Person’s Grant scheme

with the Irish dental Association on the 24th of April.

o’dowd “The government has also provided an additional allocation of €15m to enhance the provision of oral healthcare in 2023 which is also very welcome, however we must see a tangible outcome for medical card holders from this investment to ensure we have better access and less emergency referrals impacting the already overstretched HSE dental teams.”

OVER the past number of years Sinn Féin Councillor Pearse McGeough warned that grants specifically designed to aid vulnerable citizens were being underfunded and that it was unacceptable for these citizens to have to wait in excess of three years for this emergency funding. This week, that system according to Cllr McGeough “has collapsed.”

Cllr McGeough explained “The Housing Adaptation Grants (HAGs) and Disabled Person’s Grants (DPGs) are designed to be emergency grants for people who need their homes adapted to enable them to live independently for longer. It could be anything from a stair-lift, wet room or even the addition of downstairs bedroom or bathroom. An example would be if a home had to be adapted in some way to allow a person to leave hospital to remain living independently. That is the timescale the grants are designed for but unfortunately over the past number of years that has not been the case and the situation has been getting worse.

Just before Christmas, Cllr McGeough estimated the waiting time for these grants to be around 3 years given that there were over 730 people on the waiting list. The Council then ordered a review and this week Cllr McGeough was informed by the Director of Services that “as has been the practice in previous years – I am now suspending receipt of applications for the various DPG scheme due to the vast over subscription which exceeds both budgets and capacity to manage and process applications.

Receipt of applications will recommence as soon as is practical and the team will continue to give attention to priority cases.”

Cllr McGeough said “I am disgusted that this has happened and want to lay the blame firmly at the door of the Government. They allocate a certain amount of funding each year and clap themselves on the back and make the announcement with a huge fanfare all the while knowing the system is underfunded and some applicants will die before they will ever get these essential works done to their homes or end up in nursing homes or remain in hospital because they can’t be discharged without the adequate adaptations being made.

“During Covid we had the then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar telling the media that it would be preferable if more older people could remain living independently rather than going into care homes, but he didn’t provide adequate funding for this to happen and once the interview was over he never gave it a second thought.

“I have raised this consistently each month at the Council meeting asking for increased funding to meet the needs of people in Louth and have even written to the Minister myself pleading for increased funding to no avail. I did not even get the courtesy of a reply.

“We need people to live independently at home for as long as they can or wish to but the only answer is increased funding into this scheme and allow our older people and people with disabilities to be able to do that. Otherwise they will have to go into care homes or nursing homes which are already overstretched or remain in hospital, unable to be discharged.

“To say I am disgusted and angry is an understatement. This suspension was avoidable. The government cannot say they didn’t see it coming.,” stated McGeough.

• Solar Battery Retro fit for current systems

• EV car charging points

• All electrical works, residential & commercial carried out