Derek Nolan (Galway West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to speak on this extremely important topic and I commend the proposers of the motion on bringing it forward for discussion tonight. We often speak as politicians in what can be a glib way about the most vulnerable people in society, and every group can in some way lay claim to that title. Boiling it to the core, the people who are the most vulnerable in society are those with disabilities and particularly those with profound and severe disabilities. In my own experience in national politics, which extends to a short two years, this is the group with which I have had the most serious engagement. I have also experienced the steepest learning curve in this role.

I can think of the members of two families I have met. One family has a son in his mid- to late 30s who will always be in residential care. His parents are in their mid- to late 60s and as they are getting older, interaction with their son is becoming more difficult, as they are less able to handle a grown man because they are becoming more frail. Another family has a son who just turned 18 and is in a wheelchair and severely disabled. He will never live a life that we as able-bodied people will but the love and devotion of the family to the son is just as strong as it would be for any other child in a family.

I will speak about the service provider in my constituency, the Brothers of Charity Services and Ability West, which provide great and immense care to some of the most vulnerable citizens of Galway city and county.

The Brothers of Charity has a staff of 1,000 who do their utmost to serve the highly vulnerable people who avail of the organisation's services. They have dramatically changed their service model in recent years and I commend them on reducing back office staff and restructuring to deliver a more efficient and dedicated service. No one can deny the need to dispense with the institutional model for providing services to people with disabilities. However, making the transition to a new model will require additional resources if it is to be completed properly.

I thank the Minister of State for coming to Galway to meet those involved in the Brothers of Charity services. She was generous with her time, going through the organisation's budget, strategy and management systems and discussing individual cases. We must always remember that disability services are provided to individuals. I observed the immense joy felt by the parents of eight children in Galway who were informed that places would be available for them. The Minister of State was in weekly contact with the relevant officials to ensure these places became available.

Delivering the national disability strategy will be the next significant plank for transforming the system. The Minister of State's decision to chair the implementation group on the national disability strategy demonstrates the political commitment and importance she attaches to the issue. I have heard her speak about the necessity for a strategy to drive disability services. Other services and areas of Government have strategies, whereas the area of disability has lacked a strategy and suffered as a result.

Service providers are engaged in change but it must be radical and profound and everyone in the system will have to buy into it. We cannot continue to fund the system in its current form, where one has several service providers, all with head office functions, competing with one another in one city. Integration is needed, as is a shift towards a new funding model under which the service user is given the freedom to choose what he or she wants.

In all of the contributions I have heard the Minister of State make on the two areas of her portfolio in which I have an interest, namely, older people and disability, I have not heard her use the term "people with disabilities" or "older people". Instead, she refers to individuals and what they want or need to lead their lives. She recognises that service users are part of family structures in which their relatives provide care and support. It is vital that when discussing vulnerable persons we do not forget that they are individuals with their own concerns, wants and desires. I am always delighted to hear the Minister of State speak in this manner and commend her on doing so. I am pleased she is in her current portfolio because she is a woman of determination and tenacity with an intolerance of inflexibility. These qualities will be needed if, rather than tweak services, we fundamentally change the way in which they are delivered.

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