Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

The Acting Chairman is well acquainted with the issues I propose to address during this debate. The difficulties that were experienced last September, when the swimming pool at the St. Vincent's Centre was closed due to a lack of funding for its refurbishment, represented a major setback for the Daughters of Charity, who run the centre. Swimming pools are of wonderful value - for rehabilitation purposes, for example - in centres where many people receive services on a residential or day care basis. The swimming pool has been closed for some time now. It was one of the first serious cutbacks in the services being provided to intellectually challenged people at the St. Vincent's Centre. As the Acting Chairman knows, the Daughters of Charity have been providing an excellent service at the centre, which is based on the Navan Road in Dublin, for a long period of time. Approximately 300 people are catered for there on a residential or day care basis. The centre is a well respected institution in the community.

A bombshell landed on the Daughters of Charity last month when the HSE indicated they would have to pare €4 million from their services by the end of the year. If they had been given that information six months ago, it would have been easier for them to adjust. The cuts will be exacerbated because they will have to be made in the remaining half of the year. They will be sharper in the areas in which they fall. The first requirement indicated by the HSE is that 56 staff members will have to be taken off the payroll. Overall staff numbers will have to be reduced from 1,046 to 990. A sanction in the form of a 5% cut has been threatened if quarterly targets are not achieved. These measures will affect the services being provided at the St. Vincent's Centre. The HSE has already instructed the closure of the Ard Cuan respite care centre on the Old Cabra Road by 30 June next. All service users, including their families, were only told about this on 8 June, which was very short notice. The entire service provided off-campus is closing down entirely.

On top of this, the respite care service at the Sancta Maria unit, on-campus at the Navan Road centre, will be reduced to being provided four nights, Monday to Thursday. The number of family support hours provided for will also be significantly reduced. The opening hours of Connect, the after-school club, will also be significantly reduced, while the annual summer camp will not be able to function because there is no money to provide support. Parents will have to pay for the transport of their children to Deck, another service provided in the summer, if it will be able to function, which is unlikely. The skills development programme will have to close for four weeks instead of the usual three in the summer. Staff members have been informed that they will have to take an extra week's holidays at their own expense or be redeployed to some other area. These are severe cutbacks which are being implemented in the middle of the summer. The management of St. Vincent's Centre is endeavouring to ensure residential and day care services will be maintained as well as possible for the remainder of the year.

As I said, the centre has already had to close its swimming pool owing to lack of funding for refurbishment. One would expect services provided for one of the most vulnerable sectors of the community - people with intellectual disabilities - would be the last to be hit, but they have been targeted in this case. I urge the Minister to consider what can be done to reverse these cutbacks. The cutbacks to funding for librarians in disadvantaged areas who were to be given the chop in August last year were reversed last week. This service was important, particularly in terms of promoting literacy and numeracy, and I am thankful the Minister saw fit to reverse that decision because much good work has been done. I now ask the Minister to consider reversing this €4 million cutback in the service provided by the Daughters of Charity in Dublin.

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