Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to outline that, following yesterday's announcement, the overall budget for disability services in 2022 will reach €2.3 billion. I am also pleased to detail a package of €105 million provided for our disability services in 2022.

To clear up any confusion over what this consists of, I am happy to provide a clear breakdown of this figure. A sum of €50 million will be provided to support existing levels of services, ELS, which takes into consideration demographics, changing needs, pay awards, non-pay inflation factors, and so on. New development funding of €55 million will be provided in 2022, bringing the total funding to €105 million. There will also be an additional €10 million in one-off Covid funding, which brings to €65 million the total level of new funding for disability services in 2022. There will be a one-off allocation of €10 million to be spent by year end, covering the areas of assistive technology and transport, which will facilitate the upgrading of the buses of service providers. Further details will be available in the coming weeks.

In the five minutes that I have, I want to touch on some new developments in 2022, which I hope will strengthen and enhance services and supports for people with disability and give them greater choice, independence and control. I will give a brief summary in respect of some areas, with further detail to follow in due course.

Budget 2022 will provide funding of €13 million for increased residential placements on a planned basis as well as more urgent situations. An additional €5.5 million will be provided to address the situation of people with disabilities who are inappropriately placed in nursing homes. We will support the successful decongregation programme with additional revenue funding of €5 million.

For school leavers, funding of €14.4 million will enable young adults leaving school or training programmes next year to have access to supports and services that meet their needs at one of the most crucial transition points of their lives. Building on the success of the 91% reduction in the assessment of needs backlog this year, my focus over the next 12 months is to increase access to timely early intervention services. In budget 2022, we will provide €8.2 million for the recruitment of therapists and administrative support to the newly established 91 children's disability network teams. This multimillion euro investment will hopefully reduce the length of waiting times to access these vital services. It is also important to note that €1 million of the €10 million that has been allocated will be used as an intervention to actually address the backlog of children trying to access intervention therapies.

I am keenly aware of the critical importance of respite for loved ones and families of those with a disability. I am pleased to confirm that an additional €9 million will be provided in 2022 to further build the capacity of our respite services in each community healthcare organisation for children and adults, as well as providing alternative models of respite.

Funding of €3.75 million will be provided to continue and expand supports for people living in their own communities. I am delighted that I have secured what is the biggest increase in personal assistant hours in recent years, with an additional 120,000 personal assistant hours to be provided next year, as well as an additional 30,000 hours of home support to support people to live self-directed lives.

There are also a number of digital health initiatives that I am excited to announce, as I firmly believe that we must invest in technology to support people with disabilities. First, I want to invest and utilise digital health technologies to screen and audit the speech and language therapy waiting list, creating a dynamic triage system that identifies the areas of need and then provides therapist-designed home-based programmes. The second digital initiative overlaps with my brief at the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and involves mapping the availability of health, social, education, employment and childcare services accessed across the country by people with disabilities in order that we can physically see the supports near them. Importantly, we will be able to see where there are gaps so that the data are targeted and driven. In the weeks ahead, I will also provide more detail on the one-off funding to be spent on assistive technologies, which will support people with disabilities.

I will clarify the funding that has been secured in the budget for the Vote of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. There is €500 million budgetary package to support us further integrating people with disabilities into policymaking. Some €1 million in funding has been secured for practical supports to help people with disabilities in accessing and remaining in employment and in making work pay. Finally, €100,000 has been secured for my autism innovation strategy. I wish to compliment the Ministers of Health and Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth for supporting me on this.

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