Vulnerable residents left waiting to be paid by Council

Funding for Waterford City and County Council has recently been announced by the Minister for Housing, Darragh O'Brien, for people to avail of the Housing Adaptation Grants for Older People and Disabled People, however, a local councillor has expressed his concern as Waterford people have found themselves in debt due to delays in payments from the local authority.

On Thursday, May 30, individual allocations to local authorities of the overall €93 million fund for the housing adaptation scheme was announced, with €2,437,406 in total for Waterford Council.

The fund assists with the necessary adaptations, repairs or improvement works in order to make the accommodation more suitable to the needs of older and disabled people, supporting them to live in their homes.

80% of the grant comes from Exchequer funding through the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The remaining 20% in funding comes from the relevant local authority which administers the scheme.

Commenting on the announcement, Minister O'Brien expressed his "delight" and said he is "regularly meeting and speaking with people who have received assistance through these grants and the difference they make in helping people to live independently for as long as possible is remarkable".

"These grants also support local economies, creating employment opportunities for local contractors and businesses, which is very important," said Minister O'Brien. 

"Grants of up to €30,000 are available to assist disabled people carry out necessary works to make a house more suitable for their needs. Additionally, grants of up to €8,000 are available to assist older people to have necessary repairs or improvements carried out on their homes and grants of up to €6,000 are available for mobility aids," he added. 

Meanwhile, local councillor, Frank Quinlan, spoke more openly about the welcomed funding, but also the flaws in the allocations of the funding to those who are awaiting reimbursement. 

Cllr Quinlan outlined to the Waterford News & Star that the idea behind the grant is positive, however, with the influx of applicants who wish to avail of the funding for adaptations, it's proving difficult to address those numbers within a reasonable timeframe as there is one inspector employed by the Council for the entire county. 

In addition to the inspections, delays have occurred for some local applicants as their paperwork was lost between the city council buildings and Dungarvan council buildings, taking over a year for the process to get back on track. 

Other residents that Cllr Quinlan had spoken with said they are struggling financially as they had taken out credit union loans and loans from family members to make the much-needed adaptations to their homes and the Council is yet to reimburse them. 

"It's absolutely crazy what's going on," said Cllr Quinlan. 

"A couple I was out with this week were accepted for the grant and the job was done in January. This particular couple were able to pay the money themselves to the tradesman, but it's June now and they still haven't received any money," he explained. 

"It's the same thing we're hearing the whole time and now the tradesmen are refusing to do the work because they're so slow to get paid for the jobs that they can't afford to be waiting around to get the money because then they can't afford to pay their own staff who've done the work."

On average, the Council would advise that the process takes roughly 12 weeks, however, it's not uncommon for the elderly and people with disabilities to be waiting at least twice that, leaving people on pensions or disability allowance in financial difficulty as they adapt their homes to their needs. 

Cllr Quinlan said people need to be made aware of realistic timeframes the local authority is dealing with. "Of course we welcome the good news but we need to highlight what's going on at the local authority level," he concluded.