Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I commend my party colleague, Deputy Billy Kelleher, for tabling this motion. This Fianna Fail Private Members' motion gives the opportunity to all Members in this House to give a clear commitment to provide the necessary support and services to enable people with disabilities to fulfil their potential.

Over the past few months in particular, many people with disabilities and their families have expressed real concerns about the supports that will be available to them. There is a deep concern among those people that services affecting them may be cut or reduced further. To reduce services to people with disabilities will be totally unfair and unjust. Not alone did Fine Gael and the Labour Party make pre-election promises but they made commitments in the programme for Government that are not being honoured. In this motion we call on the Government to provide the appropriate funding and services necessary to honour its commitments to people with disabilities.

It is very clear that there has been a real impact on the quality of life for so many individuals owing to cuts already implemented and people with disabilities are very concerned about not being able to live independently. The decision by the Government last August to announce a reduction in the personal assistant budget caused untold anxiety to many individuals and its partial reversal was necessary.

Recently on Leaders' Questions, Deputy Martin raised the very important issue of young people with disabilities leaving school and having no guarantee of a placement at the end of the year. We must ensure that young adults with an intellectual disability or autism leaving school, who need further support from the disability services, have ready access to a suitable education or training centre. The only children leaving school who are not guaranteed a further education placement are young people with a disability, which is unacceptable.

Over the years I have had the great privilege of attending the graduation ceremonies at training centres such as Drumlin House in Cootehill, and the value of the programmes and training provided in such centres is clearly evident. Not alone do those young people get very valuable training but in most instances they also get work experience, which often opens up a whole new world for them. The employers enabling such placements deserve our commendation. The value of such training at a very modest cost is clearly evident from the participation of the trainees and that sense of achievement is also shared by their family members. We all know many such young people who continue to pursue further studies or go into full-time gainful employment. Despite the budgetary challenges critical services such as these must be maintained and no child or young adult should be denied the appropriate education and training.

As we know, home help is provided mainly for older members of society but a large number of people of all ages who have a disability depend on home support. Over the past 12 to 15 years home help support has become an integral and important part of our overall health and social services provision. There has been a recent unwelcome trend towards privatising those services. Individuals delivering those services have done an excellent job over the years and in many instances the carers gave extra and help and time to the person under their care. When speaking to people availing of home help they will inevitably refer to the bond built up with their carer. That care, commitment and additional unremunerated help cannot be quantified in monetary terms or in terms of reducing attendance in nursing homes and less reliance on the health services.

Home support workers provide an excellent service but in many instances they are being allocated particularly short time periods to care for their patients. The increasing trend to have services provided through care companies will result in their workers spending more time travelling rather than caring. The system of delivering home help through the appointment of an individual, who was generally from the local community, worked well. I am not convinced of the merits of total provision through large-scale providers.

See this speech in context