Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all of the delegates for their work and statements. I count 22 pages of statements. Clearly, there is a lot of activity, but I could not find a single sentence identifying existing problems. It is unbalanced. I appreciate that this is a political arena and that it is not really up to civil servants to come and hang out to dry the Government of the day on what is not working, but the report is not balanced. It talks about a lot of activity, but there is no critical analysis of what is working, or rather what is not working, where additional resources are required, where enabling legislation is required or anything else. That is very disappointing because there is very little we can do with the information supplied. The statements outline where we are at, but they do not really tell the Oireachtas what the Departments need and how we, as legislators, could help, particularly in the run-up to the next budget when there may be a little money to spend. I am disappointed with the information supplied from that perspective, but that is not to take from what is, undoubtedly, a lot of work that is ongoing across the Departments.

What strikes me about the three presentations - the Chairman also alluded to it - is the disconnect between all of this activity and what is actually happening on the ground for people with a disability. I will direct my first question at the HSE.

I spent about half of Friday in the National Rehabilitation Hospital trying to help a young man to get out of it. He was injured a year and a half ago and is paraplegic as a result of the injury. He was discharged from the hospital last September. I engaged with the HSE. The family also engaged with it. The young man in question was told that he would have to move back to Sligo to the intensive care unit to live out his days, which obviously is completely ridiculous. He was told this because people were screaming at the National Rehabilitation Hospital for the bed he had. He wants to lead his life and go back to work, but it took me and his family having his case highlighted on "Prime Time" and me raising it in the Dáil to even get a response from the HSE.

I wrote multiple emails. I, as a Member of Parliament and as Fianna Fáil's health spokesperson, could not even get a response to my emails. That is the reality. The reality is that it is now June. He was discharged last September but he is still there. To be fair, at the table last Friday were people from stepdown facilities, senior clinicians and people from the HSE who have been trying very hard. The reality is that he was discharged almost a year ago. He is in the wrong setting and his bed is needed by about 50 other people. That is the reality.

Can I ask the HSE how it can possibly be, with all this activity going on and all this emphasis on and work and money aimed at helping people with disability lead as full a life as they can, that someone can be discharged from the National Rehabilitation Hospital, NRH, last September and still be meeting me, his clinicians and members of the HSE last Friday? How is that still a reality today?