Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I extend my deep gratitude and respect to each of our witnesses. It can be daunting and even sometimes retraumatising to have to recount all of the ways in which the State is failing their children and their families. These are difficult matters to talk about, much the same as it is upsetting to even hear the difficulties and, as has been explained quite aptly, the lack of common sense in the approach. The lack of person-centredness is what stands out from what has been said so far. I want to say “hats off” to both of our witnesses. On behalf of the committee, I can say it is experiences like theirs that will make the difference to the work we do.

Only 9% of, or approximately 56,000, disabled people access specialist community-based disability services, which is a figure so low that I was genuinely shocked to learn it. I have become increasingly aware of how many gaps there are in disability service provision in this country but I did not imagine it to be that low. These specialist services are actually standard services if people are disabled, and include early intervention, personal assistant services and assistive technology. They are the baseline. If we truly want disabled people to be able to fully and meaningfully participate in society, it is very sad that only one in ten have access to these supports.

I will move to questions. Will Mr. O'Reilly comment on the tension between service providers and disabled people's organisations? What I mean by this is that we have seen the announcement of another budget for 2022 where an additional 120,000 personal assistant hours were granted, which is less than one hour per disabled person spread out over the entire year. I know that not every disabled person would benefit or like to avail of personal assistance but it is helpful to ground the proud announcements in what it will mean for people in concrete terms. Was Mr. O'Reilly involved in the personalised budget pilots and, if so, what where his takeaways from that experience? What does he think the barriers will be to expanding the personalised budgeting model moving forward? What does he think it will take for there to be a radical move away from funding service providers to actually funding more empowering supports, such as personal assistance?

I want to express to Ms Kenny how harrowed I was to hear of her situation, whereby her children were essentially being transferred from one waiting list to another based on their age group and not making it to the top of any of these lists in a sensible time. I know first-hand how frustrating it is when one of your children is not getting the supports they need. For Ms Kenny in particular, having more than one child in this challenging situation must have been even more difficult. My party has been advocating for integrated waiting lists across the board within the HSE to manage waiting times and stamp out some of the bureaucratic inefficiency that leave people in limbo for years. There needs to be joined-up thinking and we have known this for quite some time. I completely agree with Ms Kenny in that regard. I want to ask her about the additional challenges she faces, as a mother with children with additional needs, and the financial burden that puts on her. I also ask her to speak to the inadequacy of the means test for carers allowance in particular.