Paul Murphy condemns 'disgraceful' delays in home adaptation grants
Paul Murphy spoke on 1 June 2022 in support of a motion criticising delays and insufficiency in home adaptation grants and related retrofitting schemes. He argued that waiting lists, means‑testing and outsourcing are denying older people and people with disabilities timely access to necessary adaptations.
Access problems
Paul Murphy described a widespread failure to provide timely home adaptations, with thousands waiting months or years for applications to be processed. He said applicants often cannot find contractors when approvals arrive and that available grants are frequently too little and too late for people to live comfortably at home.
Waiting lists and means testing
Murphy argued the government uses two favoured rationing methods - never‑ending waiting lists and means testing - which thin out access to public services. He said underfunding of local authorities produces artificial shortages that force rationing across housing adaptation grants, healthcare and other essential services.
Retrofitting and emissions targets
He warned that the government’s retrofitting scheme is repeating the same problems as adaptation grants - onerous, inefficient, means‑tested applications and dependence on an overloaded private sector. Murphy said such an approach will make meeting emissions‑reduction targets "next to impossible."
Construction sector and labour standards
Murphy blamed outsourcing for inflating costs, with profits and underpaid, precarious work swallowing grant value. He criticised industry claims about a skills shortage, pointing to bogus self‑employment, very low apprentice rates, lack of sick and holiday pay and past instances of employers paying workers below legal rates.
Proposed solutions and council example
He called for proper funding for local authorities, direct public delivery through direct labour and a state construction company, expanded well‑paid apprenticeships, enforcement of labour laws and legislation for union recognition and collective bargaining. Murphy cited a reply from South Dublin County Council that a necessary adaptation for a council tenant was "not feasible" and "cost prohibitive," attributing that outcome to chronic underfunding of local authorities.
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I welcome the motion here this morning and I support it. As with pretty much every other public service in this country there is a disgraceful lack of timely access to adequate home adaptation grants for older people and people with disabilities. As has been stressed again and again in the debate, you have thousands of people in dire need of immediate home adaptations who are waiting months and even years just to have their applications processed. This is a misery for people. I deal with people who absolutely need these and are unable to get it and are unable therefore to live comfortably in their own homes. When they get their applications processed, finding a contractor is often impossible for them and then what grants are available for them are too little and too late. We can see already the same story repeating itself in terms of the government's retrofitting scheme. It's the same sort of approach and it results in the same sort of problems. Onerous, inefficient, lengthy means-tested grant application processes and then a total reliance on outsourcing to an already overloaded, understaffed private sector. It means that in that sphere of retrofitting that any targets for emissions reductions to meet them will be next to impossible. What lies beneath this? Why does this happen in the fifth richest country in the world on a GDP per capita basis? What are the root causes and what are the solutions? One obvious cause is the chronic underfunding of local authorities to carry out this work. When government funding for a service is inadequate, it leads to a shortage of that service and a rationing of that service by state agencies in response. In other countries that might happen only during wartime when there is genuine shortages and then they have to engage in rationing. In the neoliberal capitalist Ireland of Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael, a government supported by many of the independents who signed this motion, wartime rationing is effectively a permanent fact of life. Rationing in response to an artificial shortage is what is happening with housing adaptation grants, just as it is happening with healthcare and public housing and third-level education and all the other essential services that we should have universal access to as a human right. The government now has two favourite methods of rationing. The first is the never-ending waiting list where thousands of people are forced to wait for months and years for vital public services in the hope they either die first or that they give up and go private. To long establish proven ways, for example, for the HSE to reduce waiting lists. The second is means testing to thin out the queue of people deemed eligible for a public service. A bit like going down a queue and saying to every second or third person you are out of the queue. Providing inadequate grants does the same thing in a slightly different way by also rationing access according to income. There is not much point in applying for a grant you know won't cover your adaptation costs even if you eventually do get it. The other side of the problem is outsourcing what should be public services to the private sector. In the case of housing adaptation grants, it means the private sector sets the price based on what level of profit they want to make. It happens at every single stage of the chain, from construction components down to contractors, so that a very hefty and ever-increasing chunk of state grants meant to provide people with what they need to be able to live comfortably in their homes is swallowed up by profits. Of course, the other way construction bosses make the profits is by underpaying their workers and subjecting them to precarious, unreliable working conditions. A few weeks ago we were subjected to construction industry bosses claiming in the Irish Times that the skills shortage was due to an awful lot of young people that don't like getting out of bed for 7 o'clock in the morning. Nothing about the terrible working conditions in the sector, nothing about the bogus self-employment, the rates of barely over €7 an hour for many apprentices and a lack of sick pay and holiday pay. No mention by the notoriously bad employer JJ Rattigan interviewed for the article that they were previously found to be paying workers less than €5 an hour to work on government-funded contracts. If the government was really serious about providing access to housing adaptations and housing generally for all who need it, they would come down on the construction industry like a proverbial ton of bricks and enforce existing labour laws to end bogus self-employment. Instead, they are more concerned about funnelling money to the developers. Even more importantly, they would legislate for the right to trade union recognition and collective bargaining so that workers can fight for better paying conditions and to resolve labour shortages. They would also adequately fund local authorities to carry out these works for themselves with direct labour and set up a state construction company and finance a massive expansion of apprenticeships paid well above the pittance that is currently being offered. I want to quote from a recent reply I got from South Dublin County Council. I won't go through the details and I won't name the person. But this is in terms of someone who is a council tenant looking for adaptation that they absolutely need for their disability. Bottom line, unfortunately this is not feasible and will be cost prohibitive and therefore this request cannot be facilitated. Normally you get kind of kicked down the road and in the hope that it goes away but this time, just bluntly, we won't do what is necessary for this person because we don't have the money for it. It is the underfunding of local authorities. Of course this government and the right-wing independents who back it will do none of those things because they are committed to a capitalist model of public service rationing and embedded deeps in the pocket of the construction industry. Older people and people with disabilities deserve better.
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