A recent announcement by Minister for Housing, Michael Finneran TD, of funding for housing repair grants scheme has caused local councillors to be inundated with calls from applicants according to the Cathaoirleach of Mayo County Council. Cllr John Cribben was speaking at the Claremorris Electoral Area Committee this week where he said “people have seen this story in the newspapers and they assume that if they have applied for the grant they are going to get the money now. But I’m led to believe it’s not that easy.”
Cllr Michael Burke said that he had similar representations from applications, “people think that there was this big pile of money given out and everyone will get their grant, but people have been waiting a very long time for it.”
The allocation of €3.7 million still will not sort out the backlog of applications, Cllr Patsy O’Brien warned. “We’ve been given €3.7 million for the whole county but as far as I’m aware the backlog of applications is in the region of €7 million so there is still a huge gap between what we have and what we need. There are a number of people on the list for a year and more and that needs to be sorted out so everyone knows where they stand on the list.”
Cllr Richard Finn interjected saying that what is most important is that the money goes first to those who need it the most. Kieran Grealy, senior staff officer for Mayo County Council, told the members that the housing section is currently going through the programme and working out a plan based on priority needs, which will be put before the housing SPC, but all emergency cases will be dealt with as they arise.
Cllr O’Brien did not agree with a plan being put together to deal with the list as suggest by Mr Grealy. “If that happens it’s going to change the whole nature of the scheme,” Cllr O’Brien said. “If you are currently on the list then it should be on a first come first served basis, you can’t go changing it half way through a project.”
He suggested the council deal with the new applications under a revised process but said they could not do that to the people who are already in it. The council executive resolved to have a report for the next committee meeting on the current standing in relation to the number of applications and how the scheme is progressing.
