Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

Like every other Member, I welcome the Citizens Information Bill 2006. I concur entirely with Deputy Keaveney's views on medical cards for people with disabilities they will have for life. I see no reason for assessing such people continually and forcing them to lodge appeals. I am sure the Minister will do what he can about this.

All Members have been very closely associated with matters relating to disability. I have said on several occasions over the years, while in and out of Government, that we have never done enough in this regard. There is always a great shortfall in funding and consequently in the delivery of the services the disabled need.

I recognise the need for advocacy as many people find it almost impossible to gain access to various services. I am not too sure how certain technical provisions in the Bill will work. Will each person with a disability be assigned a person who will seek out for him or her the various services he or she requires? Most people with disabilities, particularly their families, will not ask who will represent them but about the services in place for them.

All political representatives in East Galway have been invited to meetings of the Ballinasloe Advocates, a forum that has met many times over the years. When I was a younger Member in the 1980s, a woman with a mentally handicapped child said at the forum that, irrespective of what way she turned, she did not seem to be able to receive a service. Every Member has heard such stories and I am not making a party-political point at all.

Certain changes have been made and there has been a fair bit of investment in the meantime, yet, 20 years after the aforesaid incident, a young mother of not more than 25 or 26 years said at the forum that her heart was broken trying to access services for her two mentally handicapped children. She was told there are services for everything but when she tried to access them, she could not do so. She could not get a child psychologist or speech therapist. The Bill will go some way towards helping this woman. However, if she could not gain access to the services in spite of her trying to do so on a full-time basis, who could? If the Ballinasloe advocates and the various groups across Ireland that do so much voluntary work to help those with disabilities cannot access services, I cannot imagine how those at whom this Bill is aimed might do so, despite its helpfulness, unless the service base is improved. Many of them will be seeking a service that does not exist, and it is incumbent upon us all to put it there. In dealing with the mentally handicapped and people with disabilities of other kinds, I have met very few who would not agree.

Like other Members, I have always believed in the human right of the disabled to an assessment and an appropriate service. Today, in 2006, we are a million miles from that. I will return to the area I know best. The Brothers of Charity are active in Ballinasloe, and the Galway County Association for Mentally Handicapped Children is the other service provider. From my many dealings with them over the years, I believe they provide value for money and that their hearts are in the right place. They are now as frustrated as everyone else, and I will give Members a case in point.

The Brothers of Charity in County Galway currently have 77 cases on their books of persons who require residential care. Up to a month ago, they had been able to place only 14. Let us consider what that means for families. There are over 50 cases in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon where parents are unable to give their child the requisite care, and there is nowhere for that child to go. There have been harrowing incidents involving very strong children aged 12, 13 or 14 with whom parents can do nothing, perhaps themselves not being in good health. We have now arrived at the situation where there is generally no place for such children.

Let no one tell me when the budget figures are issued on 6 December that, with our economy, we are unable to handle this area better. The Minister will have no trouble standing before the House and explaining the increased funding put into the system over the last ten years. It is true that a great deal has been committed, but the problem is that we are coming from a very low base. I understand some 400,000 persons are registered as having a disability. Things are happening even in today's modern age that I cannot understand, and I will explain a few to the House.

Respite care provides an example. It has been said here many times in recent years that people must give unrelenting labour 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Such total and absolute commitment means their whole lives are tied up in providing a better life for their disabled child. I know several such parents who would love a Saturday evening or Sunday off once every three or four months, never mind every week or fortnight. Even twice a year would suffice, but it is impossible. If their neighbours and relations are unable to assist, there is no respite for them. That system cannot be right, and there is obviously something wrong at its core, whether it be money, planning or personnel. If there were a rights-based system tomorrow, the Minister could not provide even a third of the child psychologists or 10% of the speech therapists required. The task of planning will obviously be much larger than hitherto acknowledged if we are to deliver the programmes and benefits that the disabled require.

Another major problem that I cannot understand is this. I have never been an educationalist, but I have noticed over the years that many children slip through the net, not having impediments identified on their way through national school in particular. I know what I am talking about, having dealt with many families in this regard. There has been major and successful change in this country, but it came from a very low base. The programme providing learning support and resource teachers is most commendable. However, like everything else, its effects are being diluted. Those with the greatest degree of handicap at national school level have access to resource teachers, but the learning support teachers are being saddled with very large classes. Since so many students just miss the minimum criteria to access resource teaching, we find that many receive much less teaching from relevant experts than hitherto.

For every young person whose impediments, such as autistic spectrum disorder, were not identified in school, there is devastation. Imagine that person journeying through the school curriculum and entering the hurly-burly of secondary school. The Minister will know as a parent that it is a step change. Most will never reach third level education, but they must try to keep up with the rest of the class and go out into what is a very big, bad world for one with such impediments.

Much can be done for such children if they are identified. What I have seen done for those assessed in time and given the type of remedial treatment to which they were entitled has been nothing short of a miracle. However, I cannot understand why we do not have more of that. Resource and learning support teaching has been useful. The integration of those with disabilities at local level should be encouraged where possible so the child is with his or her peers, brothers and sisters and neighbours. We fully appreciate there are occasions when that cannot happen, but on 6 December I expect and hope for a substantial increase in funding for the handicapped. We need not reinvent the wheel, since we now know what works. There is no need to cover old ground because we know what is needed. I hope that before long, hopefully in the next year, a situation can never again arise where a mother of two children with disabilities declares at a public meeting that she has nowhere to go and that her passage is blocked at every avenue. This woman simply could not access the services she was assured were in place. We are all assured that those services are in place, but it is difficult to find them when they are needed.

How many persons will be employed by the new citizens information board? Will they be dispersed throughout the State or will they all be based in Dublin? What type of recruitment does the Minister propose? I am sure it will be open and transparent, but what educational qualifications will be required and what training will be given to successful applicants?

I pay tribute to the Department of Social and Family Affairs as the most efficient Department in terms of providing information. I am sure other Members will agree that the communication system within the Department is open and helpful. It is the least one would expect but it cannot be said for some Departments. When I telephone on behalf of constituents in regard to some inquiry for which they cannot get the answer to which they are entitled, I sometimes wonder about the service motto or mission statement of some Departments. That is not the case with the Department of Social and Family Affairs.

In the former Western Health Board area, persons who apply to the Health Service Executive for housing aid for the elderly, which is a great scheme that has worked well for many years, are faced with long waits for a response. It seems a decision was made to postpone approvals under the scheme in the past two years. These are people of 75 or 80 years of age who require certain small but essential improvements to their homes that would make them more comfortable and allow them to remain living there. Many such persons applied to the scheme two years ago and received no response until last month.

The Minister, as a person with broad experience, must agree it is not acceptable, under any circumstances, to treat elderly persons in this way. To ask a person of 80 years to wait two years is like asking a person in his or her 40s to wait ten years. Irrespective of the resources available to the Government in this Celtic tiger economy, does the Minister agree that nobody could stand over such inadequate services for persons with disabilities? I hope all of those who have applied for the housing aid for the elderly scheme will be successful soon. It is a case of only €3,000 to €5,000 per approval, but it makes the world of difference to the recipients by making their homes easier and more comfortable to live in. This helps to address a plethora of other problems.

Deputy Andrews made a good point during the previous day's debate when he spoke about getting people with disabilities into open employment. There were great efforts in this regard 15 or 20 years ago and some degree of success. It seems, however, that this effort has begun to slip dramatically. It is something that should be revisited because there are many people who are well qualified and have sufficient confidence to work in certain jobs if they were only given the chance. It seems most of them are not being given that chance.

I hope this Bill will bring some relief to those with disabilities. It is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. If anybody believes, however, that it will be the cure for all evils and that it will fill the gaps that currently exist in the system, they are living in cloud cuckoo land.

See this speech in context