Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. O'Reilly and Ms Kenny for their forthrightness this morning, which has been a revelation. Sadly, since I got into national politics, which is coming up to six years ago now, I have dealt with similar cases on a weekly basis in my constituency office. The first time I sat on this committee I said there are things going on that we should not be proud of as politicians and we must start putting them right.

I do not have too many questions because we have heard much from the witnesses. At this stage the housing adaptation grants from local authorities are not fit for purpose relative to the cost of doing work, taking into account the gap between getting the work done and getting paid. There is also a shortfall that puts a financial burden on families. The flat adaptation grant must be tailored specifically for the needs of the household at the time. That is instead of a block grant for doing something, with the threshold decided by the local authority and which has no real bearing on the overall cost.

Children need early intervention and assessments and the process is a struggle from start to finish. Once assessments are done, parents must continue to prove disabilities year on year or time and again if they are seeking additional service or when there is a review of services. I have told before of a case of a child who is blind since birth. The parents of that child must prove that blindness all the time and as Ms Kenny has said, they must bare their sole in laying everything out time and again to prove the child is worthy of the service. That is demoralising or even worse.

There were statements about the carer's allowance. I understand the point is that if wages or income in the family increase, the threshold for the allowance is not increasing in line with it. There are 13 years of a static carer's allowance threshold but with inflation or whatever, wages are going up, meaning people can find themselves out of the net fairly fast. It is something we must look at and I see it with medical cards. If a social welfare payment increases by a fiver per week, sometimes people can fall out of the net and lose that medical card because of that fiver of an increase in the old age pension or other social welfare payment.

There is much for us to consider. Ms Kenny mentioned counselling services for the wider family. On this committee we have an opportunity and responsibility to take what the witnesses have told us and to bring into effect the required changes. Those changes require funding and we cannot hedge around this just by preparing strategies. We must ensure we provide the necessary funding for consultants, psychologists and teams in place.

We must also ensure we have cover when people go on holidays or maternity leave so a gap is not left to be filled after somebody has left. It is criminal that we have a system like that and that we do not do a bit of pre-planning to make sure a seamless service is available through the year. That takes money, time, management and accountability.

I assure both witnesses we will work closely as a committee. What we have been told today has been of immense value to me and I thank the witnesses for that. We will try to help the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, to extract more funding to ensure what we need to do will be done and properly funded. We have to legislate to make sure human rights are protected. That is what it is all about.