Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It has been fascinating, heart-warming and inspirational to listen to the witnesses and learn about the work that can be done and how the lives of people with disabilities can be improved, although I appreciate we have a long way to go. It has been interesting to hear about the work of the Crann Centre and Genio. I must applaud Ms Jarvey for her incredible benevolence. I wish we had more people like her.

We all understand from the research that there is strong evidence to show that people with disabilities lives improve when they move to more home-like settings. That is the big challenge. Approximately three or four years ago a friend of mine who was director of nursing in a congregated setting told me a story. A young man who had only known this setting all of his life was in tears and the staff had to physically try to put him in a taxi to bring him to a new place. All of the staff were crying. He and all the staff members were bereft. While it clearly works in most cases, we must be cognisant of those who wish to stay.

It is all about that choice.

I come from County Kildare and I have seen evidence from the new community settings through the work of Care and the Muiriosa Foundation. Most of those houses are in Rathangan, Monasterevin and Newbridge. The integration has been top class, particularly in Rathangan and Monasterevin, because they are small communities. That is so important and hats off to the community because it is about that cultural shift and about hearts and minds. It is so important.

Going back to the drama Mr. Mallon spoke about, in Kildare Youth Theatre we are lucky to have drama for people, particularly young people, with intellectual disabilities. We have a Hollywood star. Conor O'Donnell, a young man with Down's syndrome from Newbridge, is in "Bad Sisters". I know his family very well and was on that metaphorical journey but could not tell anybody when he was going over and back to England to participate. I completely agree that it is just phenomenal how people's lives can change through those opportunities.

My questions are about new types of service delivery around individualised supports and personalised budgets and how that can help. The Independent Living Movement Ireland, ILMI, and Inclusion Ireland spoke at a previous meeting about the really difficult application process for people with disabilities and the fact it is different in every county. It is not transparent and it is very repetitive and complicated.I find form filling complicated. How can we have uniformity and make Government services more accessible?

I love the two-generation, 2Gen, approach at the Crann Centre. As for independent living, there is independent living within a house in the community but there is also independent living staying within a family setting and that is where the complications arise from a rural point of view, which Ms Buckley talked about. How can we ensure that we support the individual and the family, particularly in situations where parents are older and in their 70s and 80s? Quite often it is older women who have been widowed and have one child with a disability. There may be a family network around the person but it is still so important that if that is the best place for that person, they have all of the wraparound services. I think that is where we need to be going and that is why I really like what witnesses are doing. Could they outline how they decide what supports a family receives?

My last question is about what ILMI and Inclusion Ireland said here about the recommendation that 7.5% of all new social and affordable housing be ring-fenced for disabled people. They are also looking for a centralised list so it would not just be county-by-county. Do witnesses have any thoughts or recommendations they could make on that?