Two weeks ago, I raised the issue of Louth County Council closing the applications for housing adaptation grants for new applicants because of the lack of Government funding. A total of 610 people are currently on the waiting list, many of whom are priority 1 cases. Since the applications were closed, my office has been inundated with people in dire need, all of which are serious cases. I will give the Minister one case as an example. A person in their early 50s had a leg amputated two weeks ago. This person was discharged from hospital last week. The family contacted Louth local authorities and they were told that applications had closed but they could apply in January 2024. This is just one of many similarly serious cases. We need extra funding urgently. When will it be delivered? Seriously, how bad does it have to get? What would the Minister say to those people? Does the Minister believe it is fair they are forced to wait until next year?

The allocations for the housing adaptation grants for all local authorities, including Louth, have been issued to the local authorities, with a further increase in that regard. The issue of a backlog of applications in Louth County Council has been raised by other Deputies too, including Deputy O'Dowd who is here also. My Department officials are engaging directly with them. We overspent our budget last year on housing adaptation grants. I fully support this roll-out. We will do that and we are engaging with Louth County Council to see if there is any assistance we can give in working through their backlog.