John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I prefer to deal in facts. The Deputy is looking for targets but I am not.

Planned services include additional residential, day care, including training places, and respite care places for people with intellectual disability and autism; additional residential care and home support services for people with physical and sensory disabilities; and additional multi-disciplinary therapy posts to provide assessment and ongoing intervention services to children with a disability.

I understand the HSE hopes to be able to finalise the position on the commencement of the developments, including those required to meet the needs of school leavers with disabilities, over the next ten days. I believe this will happen over the next ten days.

With regard to rehabilitative training, as the Deputies will be aware, within the health and training sector a range of training, health and personal social day services are provided by several State agencies, including the Health Service Executive, non-statutory agencies funded by the HSE and specialist training providers supported by FÁS, to young people with disabilities when they leave school.

With regard to training and particularly the provision of life skills training, otherwise referred to as rehabilitative training, the HSE and HSE-funded agencies provide such training services for persons with disabilities to enhance their individual level of skill, which will focus on the enhancement of an individual's care, fundamental skills, life skills and social skills. The level of outcome from rehabilitative training is not pre-determined but is dependent on the level of the development capacity of each individual. Consequently, it is important that training services are matched to the person's need.

In meeting this need, the HSE employs guidance officers at local level to assist in the profiling of young school leavers with disabilities to appropriate training and day services. The guidance officers work with the school leaver, the family, school authorities and service providers to ensure school leavers with disabilities have access to appropriate services.

The co-ordination and planning of services to meet the needs of people with disabilities form a central tenet of the national disability strategy. A critical element of such co-ordination and planning is the requirement to provide financial support for the development and implementation of services.

In terms of funding requirements for service development for HSE-funded services, the Government has set aside specific funds for service delivery for people with disabilities by way of the multi-annual investment programme 2006 to 2009. Significant additional funding has already been provided and spent on developing new and enhanced health and personal social services for people with a disability, including young people leaving school in the period 2006 to 2007. These areas will continue to be the focus of developments for the remaining years of the multi-annual investment programme in 2008 and 2009.

The Government has provided the HSE with an additional €75 million in 2006 and 2007. This funding provided an additional 506 day places and 492 day places in 2006 and 2007 respectively. In addition, day services were enhanced with the provision of additional supports to deal with school leavers or other adults with significant disabilities, with 52 places in 2006 and 66 places in 2007.

The increase in services in recent years has ensured that young people with intellectual disabilities and autism have appropriate services in place to ensure a smooth transition from secondary school. In some cases, the funding provided supported the school leavers to access appropriate day services, in line with a person-centered plan. In many cases, this funding provided places for individuals completing rehabilitative training, thereby creating training places for other school leavers. The HSE and HSE-funded agencies also provide a range of other day services designed to meet the needs of adults with disabilities.

With regard to the specific issue raised by Deputy Shatter in Cheeverstown day care centre, I am advised by the HSE that over 400 people are availing of the service provided. In addition to the residential and day services operated from the main complex in Templeogue, the voluntary organisation also operates 16 community houses in the Tallaght area, a sheltered workshop in Broomhill Drive and training, rehabilitation and education service from centres in Tallaght main street and Airton Road. I understand the Cheeverstown centre receives the bulk of its funding from the Health Service Executive and its allocation for 2008 is slightly more than €25 million. The HSE has advised me that the places in Cheeverstown for school leavers from St. Michael's House will be made available with the payment of the development funding for 2008.

I propose to inform the House of some developments in areas related to the issues raised by Deputies Shatter and Jan O'Sullivan. The HSE is in the process of undertaking a comprehensive national review of HSE-funded day services for adults with a disability. This review will seek to advise on the reconfiguration and modernisation of existing adult day services to reflect the core principles of the health strategy, namely, access, quality, accountability and person centredness. The review includes, as part of its work, examining and reviewing the range of day services such as activation, rehabilitative training and sheltered work. To date the strategic review of HSE-funded adult day services has consulted widely with service users, families and service providers and is about to engage in discussions with all parties to the sectoral plans, including the Departments of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Social and Family Affairs. A census of HSE-funded adult day services has been completed and the findings will help inform decision making in this process.

As a further significant development in support of the national disability strategy, the office for disability and mental health was established by the Government in January this year. The office brings together responsibility for different policy areas and a range of services which impact on the lives of people with a disability and people with mental health difficulties.

As I indicated last night regarding the commitment to the funding allocation of €50 million, it is not a matter of taking credit. The funding should remain in place. While I am not in a position to provide a direct answer on the issue of people with physical disabilities raised by Deputy O'Sullivan, I will issue a response before the end of the week. It is in the interest of all of us that funding for disability and mental health should be ring-fenced. I hope to achieve such a commitment.

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