Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Finian McGrath for tabling this Private Members' motion. I wish to address the Government's amendment to the motion. It refers to the greater participation in employment by people with disabilities. With 450,000 people unemployed, we know it is a very difficult and overcrowded jobs market. The sole function of the Kildare Coalition of Supported Employment Limited is to find work and support people with disabilities in employment. It has been in operation since 2000-01, and up to 2011-12 responsibility for the national supported employment programme lay with the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. Responsibility has been transferred to the Department of Social Protection, but the transition has not been without very significant difficulties. The employability services across the country continue to deliver the services, even with those difficulties. However, they have certain very practical problems, including the delay in issuing contracts. Last year some of the contracts were not issued until October. Monthly payments that are paid in arrears have been so delayed that in many cases they had to get overdraft facilities, even though the Department of Social Protection do not allow them to get such facilities. They could not pay Revenue on time and ended up having to pay penalties, which is shocking.

More than 3,000 people with a disability are availing of the service nationally and several thousand other people are now in employment as a result of the programme. The difficulties being experienced threaten the programme and the support given to people with disabilities to secure and maintain employment. Staff may need to be put on protective notice and members of the boards of directors are not fulfilling their legal role as members of the company. Is it bureaucracy or a shift in policy? If it is bureaucracy, can it please be sorted out? It is putting at risk a service for very vulnerable people. It is not acceptable that a transfer from one Department to another should present such problems.

The Government amendment "welcomes the total commitment of €1.5 billion this year on health and personal social services for people with disabilities". It is framed in a way that gives the impression that it is an increase, whereas we know that is not the case. We know about the domiciliary care allowance problems last year, the respite care cuts and the changes to the mobility allowance. Even the most basic of front-line services have been cut. For example, home help hours were cut for a second time last year, including 500,000 hours cut in the final two months of last year. That service has become considerably more robotic. The carer gets ten minutes to dress a person and 15 minutes to give a shower. If somebody needs to be dressed and needs to be supervised when having a shower, how can he or she possibly get out to the shops, cook a meal and function safely on those kinds of hours? This must be seen as a front-line service to keep people in their homes and independent for as long as possible.

Private companies, including, for example, Comfort Keepers, are given tax relief. In 2007-08, the amount that company got from the Government was approximately €1 million, and in 2011, it was approximately €3.7 million. Those who can afford to get private companies to provide services are getting tax relief from Government. How can that be right when we are cutting services to people who are very vulnerable?

I accept the Government faced a legal problem in how the mobility allowance was to be provided. However, the way it was handled was the problem, with people not having certainty before it was cut. Even now the ring-fencing of the €10.6 million is happening alongside a review of the rural transport scheme. Some of that will go to the local authorities, but they do not want it. Without the local input it is impossible to tailor that kind of local transport system. In rural areas or even in urban areas where the bus fleet cannot accommodate wheelchairs, it will be almost impossible to deliver a service to people in the timeframe being mentioned. I question whether that will be the kind of service that will meet the needs of those who formerly had that grant.

The "additional funding of €4 million to help address the service needs of school-leavers in 2013" is additional over what was provided in 2012, but not over what was provided in 2011 or 2010 because there was a complete cut in 2012. The way the Government amendment is presented is fundamentally dishonest. The HSE had to meet those needs out of its own budget.

This afternoon I raised the issue of therapy services. The Minister of State, Deputy White, told me that the €20 million would be ring-fenced and would be spent. The longer we go into the year, the more that €20 million is at risk. I am not convinced there is not a risk to it because there was no risk to it last year until it disappeared into thin air. Once we reach the second half of the year, everybody is scratching around their budgets to see where they can get money. If the people budgeted for are not employed, then it gives the HSE an argument. New university courses were added in addition to the TCD course to ensure we had enough speech and language therapists. There is no shortage of people to take up these jobs. However, there is a postcode lottery in terms of the services available.

For example, there is no community-based adult speech and language therapy service in the Kildare-west Wicklow area, which means any person over 18 years who has an impairment receives no service whatsoever. There is no list to which a child with occupational therapy needs who has left primary school can be added. Yesterday, I met a parent of a child with Asperger's, dyspraxia and a morbid mood disorder. There is no service available to that child. A young child on a waiting list for two years for speech and language therapy on reaching the top of that list is given six weeks' therapy on a once weekly basis. This means that a child with communication, eating, drinking or swallowing needs receives the same amount of therapy as a child with a significant developmental delay or disorder. A child who requires further therapy is returned to the bottom of the list and could be years waiting for a further six weeks' therapy.

I am constantly told by parents that there is no service available to their children. These children are not even counted in the system. For example, Beechpark services which offers support services to schools with special classes for children with autism and Asperger's is not taking on new schools because it does not have the staff required to provide the additional service. I hope that these therapists will come on stream quickly.

In my view, there is a system failure in terms of the design of services. I referred to this issue during the debate on the Health Service Executive (Governance) Bill 2012. Unless we address this issue and have an equality of service across the country we are on a hiding to nothing and will always have system failure.

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