Kitty Holland reports on the call for emergency funding to be put into the scheme to cope with outstanding applications
Mr Harry O'Regan (72), has nowhere to wash. Wheelchair-bound since January last year when he had a leg amputated following blood poisoning, he gets a full wash once a week.
"I go every Thursday to the health centre in Birr for a shower. Oh, I'm dying for a good wash by the time each Thursday comes round, yes.
"The thing is I have nowhere to have a wash. I have no bathroom - just a toilet. Before the amputation it was OK. I could go to my nephew's every day for a wash, but that's impossible now because I can't get about." Harry's home is a lone bungalow, situated up a side road about five miles outside the nearest town, Roscrea.
"So I've got to get a bowl of water from the kitchen and put it on a table in the living room and get a wash and a shave that way." As soon as he became confined to a wheelchair the Occupational Therapy department in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, applied on his behalf to his local authority for the Disabled Persons Housing Grant, to build a bathroom with an accessible shower.
Offaly County Council acknowledged the application at the end of January last year.
In April last year his local Occupational Therapy Department wrote to the council expressing urgency at Mr O'Regan's situation. He was told, however,"they didn't have enough money", he said.
A spokesperson for Offaly County Council, said yesterday there had been an "significant increase in demand for the scheme which has placed a severe financial burden on the council".
Staff were "very aware" of the problems being faced by people such as Mr O'Regan, he continued and said he hoped measures the council has put in place, including a prioritisation scheme and the employment of an occupational therapist to assess applications, would "speed up" their processing.
Mr O'Regan is one of "at least 6,000 people" around the State who are "having real difficulties" accessing the Disabled Person's Grant, according to the Irish Wheelchair Association.
In the meantime Mr O'Regan has asked if he could take on an architect to cost the building of a shower-room but the council told him he couldn't. Widowed since 1986, he has no children and lives alone. He has lobbied local councillors and TDs.
"A while ago I even got the minutes of the council meeting. They were talking about buying benches for the green and I can't get a place to have a wash. It makes me feel very depressed, very mad, but I have to keep going." He has, he continues, "very good friends" who recently clubbed together and raised €950 to put a more secure front door on the house, decorate the hall and put lino on the floors for his wheelchair to move across.
A former factory-worker and care-taker, Mr O'Regan said he had "a very good wage and an enjoyable life" when his wife was alive. Now, he manages on a State pension of €100.50 per week. "I have wonderful friends. But overall, it's a big drop in lifestyle. It does seem bad to me that in these years of my life I can't even have the basic thing of a place to wash myself."