Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 4 July 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Housing for People with a Disability: Discussion

Ms Siobhán Barron:

I am not sure I can be clearer on when decongregation will happen. Certainly there are a number of thousand people yet to be moved into the community. When they talk about decongregation it is looking at residential centres of ten persons or more. They have invested in an accelerated programme for a number of sites and there are a few hundred people from those sites who are yet to be moved out. That had a specific investment programme to support it.

I might come back on the other question about the Departments now as I did not answer it earlier. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is critical. The focus in all Government Departments now is on financial sustainability. Universal design provides a financially sustainable approach to housing across the board. The whole area of housing in the community is about the development of the community as a whole, so the Departments with responsibility for community development have a key role. I would include the Department of Children and Youth Affairs in the context of supporting families, what happens in the community and holding units together. There are many Departments with this in their remit. Living in the community, good living arrangements and so on are also relevant. I suspect that many Departments and agencies are involved to some degree. Disability is part of everybody's agenda. On living in the community, having access to a home and what that means even in terms of getting access to employment, for example, having a fixed address, they would all have relevant roles.

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