Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to raise this very important issue. There are some very startling figures in regard to the number of people who are suffering with neurological problems. More than 700,000 people in Ireland have some neurological condition and in ten years time there will be 860,000 such people. That is a staggering number of people who will be impacted and it points to the urgency of the issue. Some 44,000 individuals are newly diagnosed each year and 89,000 individuals are disabled by their neurological condition. In excess of 66,000 people care for someone with a neurological condition. I know people's eyes sometimes glaze over when one starts quoting numbers, but these are very stark and startling figures.

I will not repeat the points made so ably by Deputy Murphy in regard to the low number of neurologists in the country. I take a moment to reflect on our colleague, Deputy Nicky McFadden, who is suffering from motor neurone disease. What we need is not just adequate but proper neuro-rehabilitation. If the people who are suffering from any of the many known diseases which are neurologically based, such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and motor neurone disease, do not have proper access, they are less likely to return to work, which may be possible depending on their condition. They are also more likely to need expensive nursing home care and their stays in hospital will be for longer or they will be more frequently readmitted. We need to look at implementing the neuro-rehabilitation strategy which was planned in 2011 by this Government. That is something we need to prioritise and I call on the Minister for Health and the Government to do so.

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