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

The Minister of State will recall that I raised this matter with her earlier today in the course of the consideration of disability issues by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children. She may not have come across the detail of it at that time. I was unable to await her response owing to the clash with Second Stage debate on the Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill dealing with risk equalisation in health insurance.

The story of this long-awaited home for people with physical and sensory disabilities, two of whom and their families are known to me personally, has become a saga - I do not use that language lightly - of institutional incompetence. It demonstrates all too clearly the silo attitude across our public services, in this instance the almost complete inability of the key players to sit down together and rationally address and overcome the questions and difficulties that can arise in a cross-services project.

In this instance the players are the Department of Health, the HSE, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Monaghan County Council and the Respond Housing Association. I have seen so much correspondence over the years with one claiming the other has to do something or that another letter is due. It is unreal. Somewhere in there people are failing in their duty to assist this project move forward with appropriate speed and they are most certainly failing special and deserving people, and their families.

In Margaret Hughes's case, when I first Margaret with her mother, Philomena, living in sheltered housing in my home town, Philomena's dearest wish was that she would see her daughter safely provided for within her lifetime. Philomena is dead and gone and Margaret has not been provided for, as she should be. She is in a placement, but it is not the appropriate placement despite what some might suggest. In Romy Ward's case, her parents are also moving on in terms of age, and Briain and Sheila are hugely concerned for Romy's future. There was a promised placement in this new group home facility, which has yet to see a single sod turned after all these years.

I ask the Minister of State if she will personally intervene in the outrageously delayed commencement of the long promised group home in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan; that she would ensure that the serious disconnect between all the relevant entities, those I have named, the Department of Health, the Health Service Executive, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Monaghan County Council and Respond Housing Association is finally addressed and that the appropriate body from among their number, whoever that might be, would instruct the contractor to commence works immediately; and that she will assure the long waiting and long agonising intended occupants and their families of the earliest completion date possible.

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