Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not sure where the figure of €120 million comes from. I ask the Deputy to provide me with a source on that. It sounds high to me, but I am more than happy to look at what that is from. I had a very useful meeting with a service provider, which has operations in my constituency. We went through some of the difficulties it is having. The disability providers are doing an extraordinary job in making services available. There was a very strong push in recent months from the users of those services and the parents of the people who need to go into those services. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, will look to provide them with as much money as we can to keep the services going.

What the disability providers are saying is similar to what the managers of some of our hospitals are saying, which is that regardless of the funding, there are requirements for new infection prevention and control, social distancing and transport measures. Despite their best efforts, and financial support from Government, it simply is not possible for them to ramp back up. Some of the providers told me that it will require a vaccine and we will need to move to a post-Covid world before they can resume being fully operational. Along with the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, I want to ensure those challenges are considered as part of the Estimates process because we will need to do everything we can to support these providers. We simply cannot leave them to struggle through a Covid world. We need to support them in every way we can.