Ba mhaith liom ceist a chur maidir leis na deontais tithíochta athchóirithe. The housing adaptation grants are a game-changer for many people who are older or who have a disability and need to get alterations done to their houses. However, many constituents have raised with me the delays they have in accessing the public occupational therapy lists to get the sort of reports and certifications for the modifications they need. I am asking whether guidelines can be put in place. We know that in many cases the report from the private occupational therapist is reimbursed as part of the overall grant package. However, even that cost can be prohibitive for a lot of older people in particular. Is there any guidance that can be given to local authorities to pay the grant in instalments so that the reimbursement may be made immediately? Perhaps a voucher system could be put in place for a private occupational therapist to make their report. Alternatively, the local authority could be allowed to directly fund or recompense the occupational therapist for the report they might provide.

I thank the Deputy for raising this. I will talk to the Minister for housing in respect of this. We should be trying to streamline the whole system, which we are doing. People are waiting for OT reports and so on and the idea of paying in instalments pending the receipt of the report is a valid option. We would like to see greater simplification of the requirements overall to speed up the whole application process. I will talk to the Minister about that.