Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

I sincerely congratulate the Minister of State on his appointment as I have not previously had the chance to do so in public.

Located some 50 yards from where I live in Blackpool is the Cork Centre for Independent Living. The staff there work in appalling conditions. They use the most awful office facilities even though some have a severe disability and need motorised wheelchairs. However, they run a very successful operation because they know the needs of clients and they know what is necessary to live independently when one has a severe physical disability. I met two of these people yesterday and they were so stressed out that they were simply thinking of giving up the whole enterprise and handing it back to the HSE. What kept them going — this is what they told me — was the knowledge that by handing the operation back to the HSE, their 120 clients would probably fall by the wayside. The additional resources they were prepared to argue for simply would not be otherwise provided. The centre sent out letters last Friday to all its clients. Most of the centre's work centres on facilitating the provision of personal assistance. This includes helping clients to get out of bed, be washed and fed, travel to work or the library, or simply go outside the door for the sake it. Basically, it is to be part and parcel of what we all consider normal and everyday life.

They are cutting back the hours of personal assistance by anything up to 20 hours per week. One girl wrote to me and told me she had just got a home of her own and with her personal assistant was looking forward to the future. Now she feels everything is crumbling around her and she thinks she will have to look for a place in care. Imagine the cost to the State of this retrograde step.

These people need €220,000, which is minuscule. As that woman pointed out, it is exactly what it cost to do up an office for the former Taoiseach. I am not saying the former Taoiseach should not have a nice office and I do not begrudge people such things. However, the difference this minuscule amount would make to people's lives is incalculable.

I have telephoned HSE south, which is local, and the people there threw their hands up. They told me they were supposed to have €50 million in development money but it did not come through. They were told they may hear about it in the next two weeks but as a result of a parliamentary question I submitted, along with Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, it has emerged that €20 million may be released.

What happened to the notion that when an issue was itemised in a budget, it would come through? If we, as elected representatives of the people in the highest Chambers in the land, have indicated the money is to go to a certain area, how can somebody come along and decide otherwise without a Vote, correspondence or consultation? How can they decide the money will go elsewhere? This leaves people like those in the independent living centre no longer able to manage to be part and parcel of common society because of a miserly sum of money, in today's terms, being allocated. Is the €50 million coming, as it means so much to so many?

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