Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 18 June 2025
Committee on Disability Matters
Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed)
2:00 am
Mr. Bernard Gloster:
We are short of staff and pressured to recruit therapists in all parts of the health service. If that SLT wants to write to me she will have a interview, and if she passes the interview, she will have a job. The Deputy need not worry about that. I will go and interview her myself if I have to.
Regarding respite, I will come back to that with Ms Queally in a minute.
On the nursing home and the under-65s, I would like to add some additional balance to one part of last night's programme. The money and the resources to do this are important, but if I had a blank cheque today the actual availability of capacity to respond with appropriate care and services for people outside of nursing homes is limited. We might not even be able to use the money we get all of the time. I wanted to slightly correct that balance. As opposed to under-65s, I am sure there are many people who are aged 66 years in nursing homes who would feel they should not be there either. When a person who is dependent on care, whether it is disability, mental health or acute hospital care, feels they are in a place they fundamentally do not want to be in, or are unhappy in, that beholds all of us to try to do differently and do better. I am a firm believer in supporting people to stay at home as much as we can. The day you leave your own front door is the day you incur an unintended disadvantage. There is no question about that.
I will come back to the subject of devices if time allows. I am anxious for Ms Queally to talk on respite.
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