Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I assure Deputy Murphy O'Mahony I will talk to the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, about the organisation in Cork she raised. Either he or I will come back to her. On the task force, it is important that when people hear the term "task force" they do not believe it will run on forever. When will people see progress on this? The task force was established on 20 September 2016. It fulfils a commitment in the programme for Government on how we can provide services and supports to people with disabilities to empower them to live independent lives, but also provide them with greater independence in accessing the services they choose and enhance their ability to tailor the supports they receive. As the Deputy said, one size does not fit all, and we should not have service providers, good as they are, making all the decisions. No citizens should settle for that.

The task force has two components to ensure strong representation from all backgrounds. It has a strategy group and an advisory group. It also has a reference group being established to assist at key points. The remit for this task force is that it should make its recommendations on personalised budgets by December of this year so that by 2018 we will have a roadmap on giving greater control to people with disabilities and where appropriate their families and relatives in terms of how to access health-funded personal social services.

Somebody once told me that disability services are very well funded but people with disabilities are not very well funded. There is a degree of truth in that. It is a key challenge to ensure that the resources that these Houses allocate to people with disabilities are spent in a way that people with disabilities would like them to be spent.