Housing Grants Schemes

Further to debate at the City Council meeting on 14th June 1010 I set out
hereunder the position in relation to Housing Grants as requested.

Dublin City Council currently administers three home grant schemes as
follows;

The Housing Adaptation Grant Scheme
The Housing Adaptation Grant Scheme assists in the provision and adaptation of accommodation to meet the needs of people with a disability. This replaces the Disabled Persons Grant scheme, and is subject to means testing and the maximum grant is €30,000, which will cover 95% of the approved costs for applicants whose gross household income is less than €30,000 per annum, tapering to 30% for applicants with gross household incomes of up to €65,000 per annum.

The Mobility Aids Grant
The Mobility Aids Grant is available to cover basic works to address
mobility problems, primarily, associated with ageing. The works include
grab-rails, access ramps, level access showers and stair lifts. The grant
is subject to means testing and the maximum grant is €6,000 which will
cover 100% of the approved costs for applicants whose gross household
income is up to €30,000 per annum.

The Housing Aid for Older People Scheme
The Housing Aid for Older People Scheme is available to assist older people
(60 years and above) living in poor housing conditions to have necessary
repairs or improvements carried out. This grant is for owner occupiers
only. The grant is subject to means testing and the maximum grant is
€10,500 which will cover 100% of the approved costs for applicants whose
gross household income is up to €30,000 per annum, tapering to 30% for
applicants with gross household incomes of up to €65,000 per annum.

The Home Grants Section of Dublin City Council has not been accepting new
grant applications under any of the relevant grant schemes due to the
enormous increase in the number of applications submitted in the period
January 2009 to July 2009 which lead to the closure of the scheme. It was
evident that had we continued to accept applications that those applying
for the grant, if approved, might not receive payment for up to 24 months.
The capacity of the Home Grants Section in terms of the financial and human resources required to manage, process and pay out on this volume of grants if the scheme had remained open would have been completely unsustainable.
It is estimated that at the close of the scheme on July 17th 2009 there
were over 3,000 grant applications at hand to a value in excess of €20m.
Dublin City Council has paid out €59,027,162 on grants for people with a
disability and €7,135,407 on grants for essential repairs for older people
from 2004 to 2010. We have made provision in our Estimates for €12.4m for 2010. The Department of the Environment increased their allocation for
Grants for 2010 earlier this year which means that the City will be able to
advance up to €14m in 2010. We have paid out €4million already in 2010.

The Home Grants Section is currently in the process of transforming the way the grant scheme is administered including the development and installation of a new Information Technology System which will improve greatly the speed and efficiency of the processing and payment of grants and will therefore have the obvious benefit of increasing the quality of the service we are providing to our customers. It is anticipated that the Customer Service Section will become an integral part to the Home Grants function when they will support applicants over the phone to fill out their application forms and give advice on how to source the relevant documentation. The provision of the new Information Technology System is at an advanced stage and it is currently out to tender where it is expected to be installed and operational by November 2010.

The current status of our grant scheme is that we have over 1200 grant
applications at hand to a value of €10million where the applicant has been
given grant aid approval in writing to carry out the work at their home but
have not yet initiated the proposed work. All of these applicants have
received a letter in writing to ascertain if they want to continue with the
proposed works at their home. In many cases people are choosing not to go
ahead with this work if it is not absolutely essential to their needs.
There is a growing trend in this regard which would appear to be
symptomatic of the current economical situation.

It is now clear that in light of the number of grant applications currently
to hand that have been given approval but where no work is being done, that we should re-open the Grant Scheme in order to use our budget allocation to facilitate those who are most in need of receiving this grant aid. We intend therefore to open the scheme to new applicants from July 5th 2010. It may be necessary to limit the time for receipt of grant applications to a period of 3 months. However, in light of experience this can be reviewed. We will advertise the reopening of the scheme in the press, our area offices, libraries and the City Council website.