Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

From my experience down the years, this process is tied up in red tape.

I apologise, as I was not present for the presentations in full, but there seem to be two issues. In every other area, people go to the private sector first and then want to go to the public sector for permanency of employment and so forth. For example, someone starting off as an agricultural adviser joins a private practice but ultimately ends up in the Department. In my experience, people in the disability sector start in the HSE before leaving it for private practice. This indicates there is an issue.

The money was allocated on 24 or 25 September - I am not sure what the date of the emergency budget was, but it was at some point between 20 and 29 September - and it took six months to work through the system. Everyone knows the challenges, be it the organisation in question a section 38 or 39 body or something else. If the Department of Health and the HSE are on top of the challenges fully, what is this bureaucratic checking about? That some information had not been returned yet was mentioned.

There is a deficit in how the services are being provided. We politicians who sit on this committee every Thursday know families that are dependent on the public sector for services, but those services are non-existent. They are simply not there. Families get one, two or three sessions, but there are no services beyond that. Families then start looking to go private.

I take the point about rolling out a service and the underfunding of the HSE. Other equally complex Departments received funding through the emergency budget process that had to be spent by the end of the year. It was spent and sent out to organisations. If they received money on 1 February, then as sure as night follows day, it would be spent by the middle of February. Urgency is needed to ensure that every available penny is allocated to organisations so that they can recruit and keep staff and try to improve the public services that are provided to all people with disabilities. There are challenges and stoppages, but when looking at the evidence we are shown, I sometimes cannot even figure out where they are. Taking six months to allocate money does not bode well.

Recruiting and keeping good people so as to ensure disability services are available will be the public sector's greatest challenge. The vast majority of families of people with disabilities cannot afford the private sector. The witnesses should keep that in mind.

No more than is the case with Down's syndrome, too much emphasis is being placed on deciding this is not that and that is not this. The point being made is that there is too much red tape. Whether it is the witnesses, advocacy groups, the Government or this committee that blow through the red tape and identify what challenges need to be addressed, we must do so collectively.

I thank the witnesses and members for attending and I thank our team for their work. No doubt, we will be speaking to the witnesses again shortly.