Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the motion and commend Deputy Finian McGrath and his colleagues who tabled it. I also welcome the Minister of State back on her feet.

Throughout my time in the Dáil I have argued for a rights based approach to services for people with disabilities. Regrettably, successive Governments have failed to take such an approach. The result has been that people with disabilities and their organisations, networks and services have been at the mercy of arbitrary cutbacks in budget after budget. I propose to highlight the latest round of such cuts.

At the start of July, the Irish Deaf Society was refused funding under the scheme to support national organisations, SSNO, and had to close its operation. It subsequently came to light that 25 other health and disability related organisations had also been denied further funding. The scheme to support national organisations is administered by Pobal under the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and the current scheme runs from now until 2016. The Neurological Alliance of Ireland is facing closure after losing its core funding under the SSNO. All 11 neurological organisations that were receiving support from the scheme have lost their funding, as a result of which various front line and other important services will be axed and jobs lost. In the case of the Neurological Alliance of Ireland, the organisation will be forced to effectively cease operations by the year end unless an alternative source is found to replace lost funding of €60,000 per annum.

The other neurological organisations affected include the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Ireland, Muscular Dystrophy Ireland, the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association, the Migraine Association of Ireland, the Huntington's Disease Association of Ireland, Chronic Pain Ireland, Acquired Brain Injury Ireland, the Alzheimer Society of Ireland and the Irish Heart Foundation Stroke Action. The Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association has had to end its front-line visitor programme and MS Ireland will lose its information, advocacy and research officer. The Alzheimer Society of Ireland will not be able to put in place vital early intervention services for people with dementia. Chronic Pain Ireland will cease operations in less than 12 months. The Migraine Association of Ireland will lose one third of its staff and Muscular Dystrophy Ireland's front-line facilities manager post cannot be filled. The Huntington's Disease Association of Ireland is being forced to end direct front-line services, such as counselling, equipment and carer meetings owing to the loss of core funding support, and the Irish Heart Foundation Stroke Action's community stroke support programme will be severely curtailed.

This is a but a snapshot of what is happening as a consequence of decisions affecting a sector that focuses specifically on people with neurological needs. Overall, some 26 disability and health and caring related organisations have had their funding revoked in the allocations for the 2014-2016 round of the scheme to support national organisations, at a total loss of approximately €1.2 million annually. The Disability Federation of Ireland has called on the new Cabinet to enact measures to restore this funding.

These cuts are disgraceful - there is no other way to describe them - mean and penny-pinching. Their impact will extend far beyond their monetary value.

Services' advocates and resources for people with disabilities and others are being lost. I appeal to the Minister of State, who now has an enhanced portfolio responsibility, that while the decision does not rest within her Department, she should use her own long-proven record of advocacy, before the summer recess commences at the end of this week, to have a commitment from the new Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government - her own party colleague, Deputy Alan Kelly - to overturn these cuts and restore funding to these important organisations. They are providing critical front-line services to people who most certainly need them. I would be grateful if, in her reply to this debate tomorrow, the Minister of State might be able to give us some hope of a reversal of these cuts.

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