Louth County Council closes applications for HAGs

Councillors at the Dundalk Municipal District May meeting were told that applications to the Housing Adaptation Grant (HAG) scheme in Louth were closed to new applicants, due to the backlog of hundreds of applications already in, for which no funding is available.

Cllr Seán Kelly was first to bring up the scheme at the May meeting, welcoming the news of the increased allocation to the local authority from central government (see page 17 for more) and asked how many grants would this year's funding cover.

Cllr Conor Keelan also raised the matter, enquiring about the backlog in HAG applications and how many could be expected to be to be taken off the waiting list as a result of the extra funding.

Also speaking on the matter, Cllr Tomás Sharkey told the meeting that they would need to consider if the extra allocation should mean extra applications could be covered or if the local authority should continue with the same number of grants but for a higher value of grant, to allow for the increase in inflation.

Responding to the cllrs queries, Senior Executive Officer, John Lawrence, said that he didn't have the exact numbers for this year with him, but that the intention for this year was to focus on HAGs and Mobility Aids Grant (MAGs) as distinct from Housing Aid for Older People (HOPs).

Mr Lawrence told the meeting that there were hundreds of outstanding applications for HAGs and HOPs. He added that there would be a greater push this year to get jobs completed and that they would have to be “more ruthless” this year in getting applicants to get contractors on site.

Mr Lawrence further added that the reason they have closed applications for HAGs that they have hundreds already in, for which there is no funding available, and even if the governement department increased the funding allocation, Louth County Council would have to source its 20% of the match funding

In terms of the amount of grants granted, Mr Lawrence said that the amounts were set nationally by government, adding that the amounts do not take inflation into account.

Cllr Marianne Butler told the meeting that she wanted to voice her disappointment at the news that applications for HAGs have closed, saying it brought back memories of the “very bad days” when they had to do so every year.

Cllr Butler added that she went back to look at the details of the supplementary budget that councillors had approved earlier in the year, where she said some of it would be going towards HOPs, HAGs and MAGs.

Cllr Butler mentioned that she thought the Chief Executive Joan Martin had said at the time, that if councillors had a proposal for some of the €4 million that they were holding in reserve, that it might be looked at, and put forward that using directing some of the surplus to deal with the backlog that was already there would be a good use of the Council's funds.

She added that the scheme is “so key to so many people” and proposed writing to the Minister to seek an increase to the amounts available under the grant.