Mr. John Dolan:

I thank the Chair and the committee. The Disability Federation of Ireland and its member organisations throughout the country are very appreciative of this opportunity. I want to explain how health policy is pivotal in determining what the future will be like for disabled people and those with mental health needs and people in general in Ireland. In the main, people with disabilities are living in communities when they become disabled and they try to stay living there. They are not immune from the attrition of the recession in families and communities. Committee members will know from their clinics that people with disabilities have been subject to particular cuts with regard to income and services. An issue arises of a double hit to already vulnerable people. In September this year and last year, the Disability Federation of Ireland and eight national organisations, including Mental Health Reform and the National Federation of Voluntary Bodies, came together to state we have gone past the point of sustainability of services as things stand. Since last year cuts have been eating into the level of services people require. We also have information on demographics and greater need.

These cuts and restrictions also undermine the social infrastructure which enables people with disabilities to live independently and stay out of hospitals and long-stay institutions. The events of late August and early September with regard to cuts to personal assistants and home help, and the issue raised in recent weeks with regard to the mobility allowance, have torn the confidence of people with disabilities and their families with regard to the stated intent of the Government to protect the vulnerable. People do not feel this is happening and they do not have confidence it is being brought through.

Cuts to personal assistants and home help puts more pressure on hospitals and long-care institutions. It needs to be understood that the best way to take pressure off hospitals is to have fewer people requiring them for shorter periods of time and to put the focus where it is needed. Voluntary disability organisations, families and carers are at breaking point. To put it very starkly, the patient will be dead before the austerity medicine works. This is our stark assessment of the situation. The cuts are coming too hard and too fast for people and organisations, whether the HSE or voluntary organisations, to be able to react.

For the past two years this country has had a plan with the troika with regard to income and expenditure. We have a jobs plan. Over a similar period of time, since the Government came to power, it has had a commitment to have a plan to protect the national disability strategy. This plan is not yet in place. The earliest it will be put in place is January or February next year. A budget will be announced in four weeks' time which will make it more difficult to have coherence around this issue. There is an imbalance in Government policy thinking. Much work is being done on the economic side, which is right, but there does not seem to be any similar coherence or multi-annual planning to have what I broadly call a social infrastructure for people, whether they are disabled, children or elderly.

Disability and mental health issues and chronic conditions of all types are a risk contingency faced by every person in the country. Not everybody is directly affected but those we know and love and those around us will at some stage be affected. Only the Government can underwrite this and try to put a floor under it.

A value for money report was published a number of months ago on disability services. It did not deal with a plethora of supports and services which are very much involved in the community and supporting people and their families. Disability policy and health are central to Irish success and well-being in the long term.

Members of the Oireachtas make the decisions. They must either weigh up the risks of making decisions that further reduce services to people with disabilities, mental health needs and so on while at the same time degrading the sustainability of Ireland's social infrastructure, or instead recognise that, through practice rather than rhetoric, action must be taken by Government. Further service reductions will be devastating to people and, equally, to Ireland's resilience and future performance.

The Chairman is from Cork. He knows that sustained rain followed by a high tide results in flooding.