Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)

We could argue over the percentages but in terms of front line cuts, there definitely will be more than 4%. With court cases and increments built into pay already coming out of the budget, there will be major cuts of about 6.5% to front line services. The 3.7% flagged by the Minister of State is the overall figure but the figure for front line services is much greater and there will be a major reduction in those services.

The Minister of State was critical of the supports we gave to people with intellectual disabilities previously. Benchmarking this Government's progress on something it was critical of shows there are no great aspirations to move forward this issue to ensure we do not have continual crises at the end of every year. Can the Minister of State give me an assurance that this time next year, we will not be standing here raising this issue again of school leavers not being made aware of the supports and services being made available to them, so there will be a rolling fund, year in, year out? The HSE holds back money from this fund until later in the year, creating grave uncertainty for vulnerable people.

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