Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are days I come in here and listen to the bland answers drawn up by civil or public servants to camouflage what will happen, but after being out there today and being in constant contact with persons with intellectual disabilities, it is both disingenuous and wrong to read out the answer the Minister has read out. They have been told that a further €400,000 is to be cut from their budget this coming year. It is being cut from a budget from which every bit of fat has been taken and only the provision of services is left.

For whatever it is worth to be in this House, if we cannot defend the most vulnerable in our communities then we are betraying those born with disabilities. I spoke to those outside, the sisters and parents of persons with intellectual disabilities, and they told me that persons with an intellectual disability depend on these services because it gives them a life. They depend on these services because they are part of a community. If they did not have those services and such respite, they would be sitting at home with no access to anybody. Furthermore, their families are dependent on those services in order that they can have a life. They are generating significant savings to the Exchequer, yet the Government and its predecessors have betrayed those most in need.

The HSE is quite willing to facilitate the association, if it is given the political direction and the budget from the Exchequer, because it knows the value of those services and the savings generated by them. It is over to the Government to decide what to do.

I am humbled by the presence of the people concerned today in the streets. Last Monday night week, the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Deenihan, was at a meeting with the Kerry Parents and Friends Association and I am quite sure he was as humbled and as emotional as was my daughter, who was representing me on the night. It is of considerable importance that this be dealt with. A bland answer in this Chamber where a Minister reads a script from a civil servant is definitely not good enough in the case of the rights and entitlements of those whom we all represent.

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