Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I share the Deputy's position on the UN convention. I agree that we must ratify it and I am working towards that at the moment. In fact, I have just left a meeting with officials from my Department and the Department of Justice and Equality at which we discussed the legislative position and some of the blockages in the system. On the broader point, I fully support the ratification of the convention and I am working very hard to do that.

I strongly disagree with the Deputy's second point because since this Government came into office, we have improved the investment in disability services. I secured an additional €31 million within a matter of weeks of becoming Minister of State. We are now investing more in disability services and there was an increase in funding in the recent budget. The Minister for Health and I have worked very closely on this. We have spent the past few weeks working very hard on the HSE service plan for 2017. We are trying to develop services. It is all very well to talk about the rights of people with intellectual and physical disabilities but we must also ensure they have access to services. While work is ongoing in terms of the ratification of the UN convention, I want to invest in and improve the services. We all accept that services for people with disabilities have been devastated over the past seven or eight years and we are now trying to rebuild them. We are starting that process and I would love the Deputy's support in that regard. People will be coming along over the next few months, trying to steal money from the services. We must focus on services. We gave a commitment prior to the general election to allocate funds 2:1 in favour of services over tax cuts. We must uphold that commitment and we need support to do so.

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