Paul McGrath (Westmeath, Fine Gael)

In the midlands, there have been cutbacks in services for people with disabilities. How will this Bill make a difference? What does it contain that will help us all to provide a better service for people with disabilities? I had a brief glance at some of the provisions. For example, the explanatory memorandum on Part 2 states: "This Part establishes an entitlement to an assessment of need and to the services set out in a related service statement." That sounds excellent. Assessments and services will be provided. However, two lines further down, the memorandum states: "The contents of the service statement are subject to a number of considerations including resource constraints." The Bill proposes to provide for assessments and services but only if the resources are available. This is a reversion to the old way of doing things. If there are crumbs to spare from the table, they will be given to people with disabilities, but the Bill will not state that they must have them. They will get them if resources are available. The Bill does not state that disabled people are entitled to them.

The explanatory memorandum, dealing with section 7, states that each assessment will be in writing and will include a decision as to whether a person has a disability, the extent of the disability, a statement of the services needed and the timeframe within which these services would ideally be provided. The word "ideally" raises a doubt as to whether they might or might not be provided. The rider in the explanation of Part 2 stated that the provision of services will be subject to resources. Confirmation that the opening paragraph pertaining to Part 2 was correct after all appears at the bottom of page five of the explanatory memorandum which, dealing with complaints and appeal procedures and so on, states that the chief executive officer of the health board — that has changed since this was printed — is required to implement the recommendation. In other words, if the recommendation of the assessment was that the person needed a certain level of service, the chief executive officer was required to implement that recommendation.

There is, however, a get-out clause that permits the chief executive officer not to implement the recommendation if he or she believed that doing so would lead to expenditure or indebtedness beyond what the Minister has provided for under the Health (Amendment) Act 1996. In other words, the chief executive officer could say that the person had a right to the services but that the money was not available to provide them.

Some observers might say there must be recourse to a higher authority in these circumstances. I can show the Minister of State files that illustrate what can be achieved by appealing to a higher authority. I have a collection of files relating to young people with special educational needs. These young people were assessed by psychologists and educational psychologists and reports were prepared. Those reports, which I am sure the Minister of State is familiar with as a public representative, detail the tests the young people were administered and recommend the delivery of special education services such as special needs assistants and resource teachers. These reports are then sent to the Department of Education and Science where an individual who has never met the young people in question will examine the recommendations of professionals and either reject them or not deliver them in full.

An interesting case I encountered involved a young man in Cork who was assessed and found to require special education services. The report's recommendations were rejected by the Department. I talked to the parents and obtained the relevant documentation under the Freedom of Information Act. The documentation showed that the child had not been assessed by the Department. I contacted the Department but to no avail. I met a very influential member of the Department here one day — this individual was not a Minister, a Minister of State or a ministerial adviser. I explained the facts of the case and told the individual that the parents were initiating legal proceedings. Ten days later, I received a telephone call from the relevant official in the Department who told me that it had decided to agree to the report's recommendations. The Department did a U-turn because of the prospect of legal action, but what about those people who have neither the motivation nor the means to take legal action? All they can expect are the crumbs that fall from the table. They are left with an inadequate service, which is unacceptable.

Further in the Bill, if one looks at section——

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