Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his comments. I will make one comment. We know we are moving towards the end of the term of office of this Government. I put on record the value I see in the decision that was made by this Government to take disability out of the Department of Health and put it into our Department. It was made at the start of the Government's term of office. The change happened only about two years in, so the work the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has led, supported not only by me but also by Mr. Ó Conaill and the team around him, has really only had two years to bed in. We know that at the end and at the start of a new government there will be the usual chopping and changing with Departments. No doubt people will say the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is too big and needs to be chopped up. I strongly urge that the change made to take disability out of the Department of Health is not reversed because I think that would be so retrograde. It has had only two years to bed in. I see improvements and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, sees improvements.

There is a long way to go. We have never denied the challenges. We have never denied that we have only started to chip away at them, but we got the optional protocol ratified last week and we are getting very significant investment. There still needs to be more. It is a matter of growing that investment. I believe that is being achieved because responsibility for disability is now in a new Department. I say to all parties not to allow that to be reversed. Not only would it be a waste of the time spent over two years but it would also take away the opportunity whereby the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and I are constantly on to the HSE and Bernard Gloster, saying to him that while we know waiting lists, trolleys in hospitals and cancer care are important, disability is also so important and asking him every single time what he is doing about that, and there is a real value to that.