Ms Patsy Carr:

I am not familiar with the case the Deputy is talking about. We are all aware that there are 110 beds in the National Rehabilitation Hospital and obviously that is not enough for the needs around the country. As the Deputy rightly pointed out, there are a lot of people in beds there who could have their care provided, and would prefer to have their care provided, in their own community. There are an awful lot of people in acute hospital beds all around the country waiting for those specific beds.

There is a new rehabilitation strategy and the desire is to move some of the services to the community but we do not have the staff. The programme is expensive and we do not have an allocation for it. Every year the HSE makes a case to the Department for funding and we negotiate with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, but no matter how much money we get for the disability services, we have had years of no funding. Quite frankly, since the economic downturn, there has not been investment in disability services, and not just in neuro-rehab. We have huge waiting lists for residential care and respite care and, unfortunately, it is a case of loaves and fishes.