Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair and my colleagues. Dr. Pender has answered one of my questions about what happens after the hospital and after the rehabilitation period. That is something on which I have had feedback.

It is as if you get to a certain point and almost your whole job is rehabilitation and everything is focused on that. Then you are back into day-to-day life, with all of its very different tasks that are different from what you were just focusing on. Some of these tasks are seasonal and you encounter different challenges at different times of the year. There are challenges in relation to what goes on for your family and how you can support, or struggle to support, them. Dr. Pender made the case very well about the importance of the community supports piece and that follow-up support. That is really important. Will Dr. Pender comment on what community based rehabilitation services exist and how they can be resourced? Are they uneven?

The witness from the federation mentioned engagement and I have a question arising from that conversation. What does the national federation's engagement on the housing strategy look like? Is that central? For example, every local authority area, as I understand it, is doing a housing needs assessment at the moment. That is a ground up piece of how the housing needs of persons with disabilities are being addressed. Is it being recognised in the housing needs at that level, and not just in hard numbers, that there will be a large cohort of people with disabilities, many of whom will be in households?

On the more top down piece, this committee has raised concerns about the inadequacy of things like Part M of the building regulations. Certainly, others in the committee and I have raised issues in regard to the national development plan and the importance, not just in health facilities, but in all of our buildings, that we have conversations around disability. Is the federation using its engagement to push forward universal design as a general standard?

There are a couple of projects that the federation had prior to the UNCRPD, including the next steps programme, the informing families programme and a number of programmes within that. Have the programmes all been reviewed now in terms of the new empowerment frame of the UNCRPD, that is, the rights-based approach? How has the federation examined its own programmes? This committee has been looking at reframing things; it is not just about getting services to people but it is about the empowerment frame as well. The three programmes I am interested in are the next steps, the informing families and the older persons working group. I used to work with Older & Bolder and there is much overlap there. Is there a common engagement or common cause that has been found in terms of pushing the agenda? Universal design is one example.

Retrofitting and adaptation tend to be separate tracks at the moment and I have been pushing for them. However, for example, people with disabilities and older people often spend more time at home and are more vulnerable in terms of fuel poverty. Should there be an all-in-one grant for people that combines retrofitting and adaptation?

Mr. Hennessy mentioned multi-annual funding and we all heard him; it is clearly important. Within multi-annual funding, is it important to build in flexibility to allow for response? Instead of getting three years to do the same thing, would it be better to have a guarantee of three-year funding that comes with flexibility so that those who are using the service can give feedback about what does and does not work or what needs adaptation, so that feedback can be met with flexibility, responsiveness and empowerment? What is the importance of non-directed funding, that is, funding that allows for a response to a demand or request?

There were comments made on the personal needs assistant. The statutory requirement to home care that was due in the programme for Government is now being supplanted and there is beginning to be something of a statutory entitlement - or should be a statutory entitlement - to personal needs assistants. Both are, of course, important. What progress has been made in terms of that statutory entitlement to home care or to, also importantly, personal needs assistants? Until there is a statutory entitlement, people will still have a dependence on a patchwork on public and private provision.