Mr. Brian Dalton:

When I began my personal assistance journey in 2013, I spent three years on a waiting list to get a personal assistant. I am totally blind and a wheelchair user. The reason I got some hours, which was a small number of hours at the time, was because somebody died. A disabled person died and his or her hours were divvied up. I began my personal assistance journey with a service provider in the Irish Wheelchair Association and was guided and supported. The true aim for me was to reach the personalised budgets project where I had full flexibility, full choice and full control in my own life so I could hire the people I wanted to work with and could hire the people who I deemed appropriate to have the same skill set I was looking for. There have been several challenges with regard to that around recruitment. In my last advertising campaign, I had about 300 applicants and about three people I would deem to have been suitable for it.

I entered the personalised budgets programme in 2024. Since then, the staff membership has been reduced by two and is almost non-existent. I have been informed that the current staff member on the personalised budgets has not even been given a full week to work on his programme. There are challenges for me as an employer in terms of getting invoices through systems. While I understand that transparency is required, the system does not meet the user need in terms of the administration. I have had to send in several invoices ahead of time to have them published because I cannot say to my personal assistants at the end of the month that I am sorry but I have no money to pay them because they will say "see you around Brian". We cannot have that.

The fundamental thing to understand about a personal assistant is that one builds a relationship with him or her in one's life. These are people I have chosen to work with me. I have two full-time personal assistants and one lady who provides relief cover to cover annual leave and various gaps. One builds a relationship with these people. They are part of one's life. My own company is called My Life My Way because that is essentially what a personal assistant means to me. Being part of the personalised budgets means that I can set the terms and conditions. I can set the salary that my budget can afford. I can agree terms and conditions with my personal assistant.

My funding for the personalised budgets comes from the HSE, yet my personal assistants do not have the same terms and conditions as HSE workers. I am talking about issues such as pay alignment, terms and benefits. I have three female personal assistants, PAs. If any of those goes out on maternity leave, I cannot give her the benefits that she may get if she had the same terms and conditions as HSE workers. I hope that goes some way to answer the questions around the challenges.