Grants for elderly and disabled hit by council's delay

Bray Town Council has delayed the payment of essential grants to the disabled and elderly across the State by almost four months through its failure to submit budget returns to central government.

The Government requires the budget figures from each local authority to determine the amount of money it needs to provide for co-funded schemes, such as the disabled persons grant, and the essential repairs grant for the elderly.

A significant number of local authorities were extremely late in returning their budget figures for 2003 to the Department of the Environment and Local Government, officials have said. However, only Bray Town Council failed to make any budget returns. The deadline for submission of returns was January 5th.

Due to the delays, the Department of the Environment said it has been unable to release its share of funding to any local authority, even those which submitted returns on time, because its policy dictates that the budget must be in from all councils before any money is paid out.

However, the Department has said the delays cannot continue and it will begin making payments within the next two weeks, without the complete figures.

The disabled persons grant is paid to people with disabilities to make repairs or conversions to their homes and the essential repairs grant is a similar fund for the elderly. Both are co- funded - one-third coming from the local authorities and two-thirds from the Government.

Local authorities across the State have claimed they are almost out of money for both schemes for this year and a number of councils, including Meath, Tipperary North and Tipperary South, have said they will take no more applications from the disabled or elderly for the rest of the year, because of a lack of funding.

A spokeswoman for the Department of the Environment has described the councils' claims as "astounding".

"It is impossible to see how the money can be gone, because the allocations for this year haven't gone out from our housing department to the councils yet."

She said six local authorities had made incorrect returns and this, coupled with the delays, had meant that the Department had been unable to determine how much money they needed to disburse.

"We can't give out two-thirds if we don't know how much money that is. The Department is being blamed for not providing funding when it's the local authorities themselves who are holding things up."

In 2002, the Department spent €31.5 million on the grant, but the councils say the funding is still inadequate.

Approximately 80 per cent of local authorities have said they are dealing with a backlog of grant applications from 2002 that they have been unable to fund, according to People with Disabilities in Ireland.

Last month the director of housing services for Meath County Council, Mr Kevin Stewart, circulated a letter to all councillors informing them that the council would be unable to process any further grant applications this year, due to the "potentially serious financial implications for this council".