Achill based councillor Paul McNamara has expressed disappointment that Mayo County Council stopped issuing funding for a number of housing adoption grants this autumn after the schemes funding ran out for the year.
Speaking at the November meeting of the Westport-Belmullet Municipal District, Cllr McNamara said that there should be better planning and communication in the area. He said that he knew of an elderly woman coming home from hospital and her bathroom needed to be done under the scheme, but there was no money for it and that councillors should be told when the funding under the schemes is spent for the year.
Head of the Municipal District, Padraig Walsh, told the elected members that the districts got written correspondence from the head of the housing section of the council in September to say that the funding had reached its limit for the year and they could not process any more applications. He added that the control of the policy is with the housing office and the district had to act on what they were told.
Cllr McNamara replied that from now on he would be telling people after September to not apply for that year as the money might not be available to them - but he was disappointed because 'it is a very important grant that does a lot of important work for elderly people on their homes in the county'.
