It takes Fingal County Council up to two years to determine if someone with a chronic illness is eligible for housing support.
At this week’s meeting of Fingal County Council, Sinn Féin’s councillors asked why is it taking so long for the council to work through the waiting list, and what steps are being taken to reduce the waiting list times.
The motion, introduced by Sinn Féin councillor Angela Donnelly, found that the council receives around 60 applications a month from people who want to apply for housing under medical welfare priority, but the waiting list is ever-growing.
Donnelly said, “we all have people coming to us who have sought medical priority out of pure desperation, hoping that the genuine condition they have might result in them getting accommodation sooner rather than later.”
“It’s not good enough, and it’s insufficient,” she said.
The Sinn Féin councillor read correspondence from a constituent who waited 11 months for a response, only for the response to plainly read, “after a detailed review, we regret to inform you that at this time you are not being considered for accommodation on exceptional medical grounds. This decision is based on the assessment of your medical documentation in line with the housing allocation scheme.”
“After waiting 11 months for a response, this is the extent of the information applicants receive,” Donnelly noted and that a more streamlined process would save Fingal residents “a lot of heartache and stress” as well as freeing up council resources.
Earlier this year, councillors were told that there were 476 people on the waiting list in Fingal.
Swords councillor Dean Mulligan called for more resources to be allocated to the scheme.
He said that anyone who has ever worked in the medical community knows that 60 applications a month isn’t that big a number in the grand scheme of things, but Fingal County Council appears to be unable to get a handle on the ever-growing number.
“It just beggars belief that two years is the timeline,” the Independents4Change councillor said.
Mulligan said he wasn’t questioning the qualification of the staff, but said there should be more oversight in the process, and applications should be given greater scrutiny.
He said the current process is opaque and that there should be more transparency.
“We need to understand more thoroughly how the process happens,” and said that the reports given by the council to applicants are lacking.
He said that the lack of detail and generic responses from the council will only compel applicants to appeal the rejection, which only adds to the delays.
Mulligan said that applicants who were rejected were within their rights to appeal the process and that the process and relative lack of transparency are “concerning.”
“There are a lot of waiting lists across this country, but 60 applicants a month is two a day. It’s not an extraordinarily long waiting list compared to some of the other medical waiting lists,” he noted.
Labour councillor James Humphreys said he had reservations and concerns that the applications and screenings were being carried out by people who were not of a medical background, saying the process “strikes me as a bit odd.”
Sinn Féin councillor John Smyth “it’s about transparency,” saying that it should not take a committee of four or five people to sort through one application.
“I would love to know more about the process; some cases have been brought to my attention of people who have been given medical priority, are aware of houses that meet their needs, and are high up on the list, then they are overlooked. In one case, the person knew it met their needs, but according to our system, they didn’t meet the criteria.”
The Swords councillor said he was “concerned” about the lack of transparency.
Sinn Féin councillor Malachay Quinn “we have places around Fingal where there is a lack of doctors and surgeries, and they are overrun; they are refusing to fill out the forms in some cases. In a more serious case, I had something come through the office where an Iraqi refugee had come over here as an asylum seeker and found it difficult to get a doctor to sign off on an HMD form.”
The Balbriggan councillor said that consultants in the Mater Hospital said the refugee should be on a medical priority list, but was not on the list because local doctors were not able to fill out the form.
“There are people who aren’t even getting to that stage because of the lack of doctors and surgeries,” he noted.
Fellow Balbriggan councillor and Mayor of Fingal County Council, Fine Gael’s Tom O’Leary, said that the two-year waiting time needs to be cut and that he was supporting the Sinn Féin motion.
Paul Carroll, director of housing and community development with Fingal County Council, told the meeting that an extra doctor has been brought into the process by the council, which has doubled the amount of work able to be done.
Carroll said the “vague” nature of the results is under investigation, saying it was a “valid” point.
The lack of funding and powers afforded to local authorities has been laid bare by the Northside People since the new government was appointed in January.
Despite assurances from Fianna Fáil in their election manifesto and in the Programme for Government that devolving more powers to local authorities was one of the government’s priorities, the hollowing out of local government services has left a bad taste in the mouths of councillors and residents alike.
This week, assurances from the government that Dublin City Council would give €50 million more in funding for the tenant-in-situ scheme were greeted as “too little too late” as homelessness has risen by more than 500 across Dublin in the six months since the Department of Housing cut funding for the scheme.
This week, Fianna Fáil announced former Dublin GAA boss Jim Gavin as its candidate for the presidency; Gavin’s chairing of a citizens assembly on local democracy in 2022 saw him recommend that Dublin have a directly-elected mayor and afforded significant local powers.
In a separate statement, councillor Humphreys said “I hope Jim Gavin has secured a commitment from his own Ministers that this time the public’s voice will be acted on.”
“The Citizens’ Assembly he chaired did serious work on the future of Dublin, only to be ignored by the government.”
Humphreys said, “citizens will not engage if they think their input is being dismissed. We need a government that treats public forums as more than window dressing.”