Louth cllr raises plight of woman (82) without heating in her home

The plight of an 82 year old Louth woman who has no heating in her home, and is unable to get any assistance from the Housing Adaptation Grant for People with a Disability as the funding has dried up for this year, was described as “dreadful” by Cllr Pearse McGeough.

Cllr McGeough, who raised the issue at the Louth County Council October meeting, told the Dundalk Democrat that the woman faces “a very cold winter, not because of the rising energy costs, but because she has no working heating system in her home and little prospect of getting the grant for it despite having applied in March of this year.”

Cllr McGeough said: “When this lady’s antiquated oil heating system broke down she was faced with the possibility of having to pay several thousand euro to upgrade or replace it, money she just didn’t have. The lady then applied for the Housing Adaptation Grants for Older People and People with Disabilities (HAG) and submitted her paperwork back in March of this year. Unfortunately for this lady and the several hundreds of other people on this list, there just isn’t enough money to fund her heating.”

At the Louth County Council October meeting, Cllr McGeough told members that “she has done everything [to apply for the grant]. I have assisted her in getting all the necessary papers into the Council”. Highlighting the woman's age, Cllr McGeough added, “she's waiting to get heating in her house and I think it's dreadful.”

In response, Director of Social Development, Mr Paddy Donnelly, said that the funding for the grant for the current year has been exhausted and there is no more funding. Mr Donnelly said that each year they are “oversubscribed in relation to the funding that's available” under the grant.

Mr Donnelly went on to say that they would continue to address their priority cases but that the priority cases are around aids for the disabled and access to properties. He acknowledged that providing heating in private dwelling is a feature of the grant but “there was less funding allocated to that particular section, the other areas are the priority cases.” He further added that they would “continue to exhaust fully the allocations made to us this year, which is match funded by our own [funding].”

Explaining the purpose of the grant, Cllr McGeough told the Democrat: “The Housing Adaptation Grants (HAGs) 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 or in this case, a heating system.

“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 is getting worse.”

He continued, “Currently there are well over 500 people on the list for these grants. To give you an idea of the waiting times for these ‘emergency’ grants: in 2021 there were 332 completed applications. There were 630 applications ‘rolled over’ in 2022 because there wasn’t enough funding.

“That is roughly twice what was completed in 2021 so that would suggest the waiting list is around two years. However, there have been 457 new applications this year so far, including the lady with no heating and we are only in October. If they complete an estimated 350 applications this year that will leave 730 applications (not including the new applications from now until December) rolling over into 2023 which is real time runs around three year waiting.”

The Ardee councillor added: “This lady with no heating this winter won’t be able to wait, many on this list aren’t able to wait either. This is not the fault of Louth County Council, they spend every penny they get in funding on these applications, the fault lies with the Government who need to invest more money into this grant scheme.

“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.”

Cllr McGeough further added, “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.

“This lady with no heating is just one example of many that I and any councillor could give. The only answer is increased funding into this scheme and allow our older people and people with disabilities to be able to remain at home for longer. Otherwise they will have to go into care homes which are already overstretched or remain in hospital, unable to be discharged.”