Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Quinn for his very comprehensive presentation. I have one or two questions. The witness spoke of the 1,100 designated centres. I know that he has given a breakdown of the centres that remain to be registered as 26%. Of the 1,100, is there a breakdown of the number of centres that are not under the management of the HSE and those operated by various voluntary organisations? It would be interesting to see that figure. Mr. Quinn has said that 71 centres that are run by the HSE are not registered. I presume that HIQA has had communications with the HSE and that there is some kind of deadline in place regarding those centres. Will Mr. Quinn also provide an outline of the timeline regarding the 209 centres that are governed by the non-statutory providers.

The second issue I want to raise is a problem I have come up across very recently with a number of people, especially in the Cork area. I received a detailed reply from the Minister about it. I refer to the situation where respite care is not available when a person reaches the age of 18 . One of the reasons given is that facilities that were providing respite care for people over the age of 18 were no longer available as a result of standards not being met in HIQA inspections. When HIQA identified a problem with a facility, it appears that, rather than dealing with it, the service was withdrawn. I am not too sure which centres we are talking about, but this is the argument now given as to why respite care is not available. I have come across situations where parents had the benefit of the respite care for their children up to the age of 18 and then suddenly that care was no longer available. The argument provided by the Department and the HSE was that some facilities did not meet HIQA standards. When facilities do not meet standards, what timescale is provided in order to allow them to reach those standards? Is it three, six or 12 months? Do we need to take into account that if they do not make the standards, there is a risk that the service will be withdrawn completely?

My third point is also on the issue of providing facilities for people with disabilities. There is a huge number of people who attend day care and whose parents are aging. I am very concerned about this and I raised it at an earlier meeting. There is a big concern that adequate facilities will not be available for these people when their parents are no longer able to look after them. Has an analysis been done in this regard? I may be wrong on the figures but it is my understanding that there are 18,000 people currently being cared for by their parents in the home. Many of these people attend day facilities, some do not. We are talking about 18,000 people. Have we any kind of idea, or is there any discussion between HIQA and the HSE, about long-term planning in that whole area? A huge number of those people will require some kind of residential care, be it respite care or long-term residential care, and I wonder where we stand in that regard.