Disabled and elderly people are being denied grants to make their homes more accessible, according to the opposition who described it as a “national disgrace”.
Fine Gael said deputies have been contacted by a number of older people who have already been approved for a grant but were informed in recent days they will not receive it.

Front bench spokesman Billy Timmins said local councils have also stopped taking applications under the Housing Adaptation Scheme due to budget shortages.

The scheme is granted when people need to make alterations to their homes to make them suitable for their needs — such as making them wheelchair accessible or building downstairs bathrooms.

Mr Timmins said: “People who were approved for a grant scheme have been informed in recent days they cannot go ahead with their proposed work.”

A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said: “There is no funding shortfall. The €71.4 million we gave this year exceeds last year’s allocation by almost €100,000.”

He said requests for additional funding for the operation of the scheme by any local authority “will be dealt with in the light of any savings emerging later in the year in other local authority areas.”

Mr Timmins said this means that “cash-starved local authorities can only get more cash to pay for these schemes if other local authorities do not spend all of their allocation. With massive waiting lists this is highly unlikely”.

In the first three months of this year local authorities received 6,220 applications for grant assistance for elderly and disabled homeowners. It is not know how many of these have been told they will not get their money.

Dublin City Council said the 323 applicants in its area “have not been affected by the cutbacks and will get their promised grants”.

Mr Timmins said: “The people who avail of these grants are the most vulnerable in Irish society and should not be made to pay for the economic mismanagement of this Government.

“These grants are generally used for essential repairs to prevent structural damage. I am calling on the Minister for the Environment to search deep to properly fund the essential upgrades that these people so desperately need,” he said.