Dr. Simon Walsh:

The big things Deputy was talking about were the HSE’s failings. For the South/South West Hospital Group in Cork and Kerry, where I work, the problem is that its budget is for the hospital and all of the community hospitals in the area, and disability services as well.

They are being pulled in many different directions. The hospitals are underfunded and understaffed. Most people see the need for a major hospital and the trauma network that is coming in. Considerable funding is going to that. Disabled people represent a small proportion of people who require funding meaning there is less of a draw for the head of the South/South West Hospital Group to provide funding for that. In Galway, the Brothers of Charity and the Department of Education came together and both fund the disability services, whereas in Cork it is all done through Cope Foundation. It is just underfunded.

Do the people at the top need to be diverting more money towards disability? That is an easy thing to say but then money is being pulled from elsewhere, for example, from the emergency department. If there was a big bucket of money and it was possible to do that, they would rebuild all the buildings and get all the therapists in, but we just cannot do that because there is pull from every direction. Everybody wants money in their direction. It would be great if we got money in the disability direction, but money is needed everywhere.