Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is a song called "I Don't Like Mondays" but I am starting not to like Thursdays, to be honest, because I seem to be the only one here on Thursday evenings. I welcome this Topical Issue debate and I thank Deputy Wallace, Deputy Daly and Deputy Ó Caoláin. I will set out the prepared response but I will respond to some of the comments made as well.

On behalf of the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy McGrath, I thank Deputies Wallace, Daly and Ó Caoláin for raising this important issue and for the opportunity to respond to the House.

The Government is committed to providing services and supports for people with disabilities that will empower them to live independent lives, provide greater independence in accessing the services they choose and enhance their ability to tailor the supports required to meet their needs and plan their lives.

Significant resources have been invested by the health sector in disability services in recent years. This year alone, the Health Service Executive has allocated €1.9 billion to disability services programmes. People with disabilities, including those who are deaf, hard-of-hearing and deaf-blind, can access the broad range of acute care, primary care and community-based services that are provided by the HSE. They can also avail of specialist disability services, which are provided in a variety of community and residential settings in partnership with service users, their families and carers as well as a range of statutory, non-statutory and community groups.

Several non-statutory organisations are specifically focused on addressing the needs of the deaf community. Services offered include family and support services, active technology and active listening devices, community and lip-reading classes, information and advice and sign language classes as well as a mental health and deafness service. Most of these organisations receive funding from the HSE either through local grants of various amounts or direct funding. The HSE had 35 separate service level agreements with organisations providing services for the deaf or hard-of-hearing in 2018. The largest provider of such services is the National Association for the Deaf, which received significant core funding from the HSE of €6.7 million in 2018. The Irish Deaf Society, on the other hand, focuses its service delivery on advocacy and training and development as distinct from the delivery of services and social care supports to deaf communities. For this reason, the Irish Deaf Society does not receive core funding from the HSE.

The Minister of State with responsibility for disability services, Deputy McGrath, is aware of the financial difficulties that the Irish Deaf Society is currently experiencing and of the concerns regarding its future sustainability. Several different funding options are available to the organisation and the Minister of State strongly urges the society to pursue them actively. I understand, for example, that it has received funding in the past from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government in respect of its advocacy work. The society received €269,700 under that Department's most recent round of the scheme to support national organisations in the community and voluntary sector. This scheme is running for a three-year period from mid-June 2016 to mid-June 2019. The society has also been funded by the Department of Education and Skills and it has received grants from the Department of Justice and Equality and the national lottery.

I wish to emphasise that the Department of Health does not provide direct funding to organisations and any such funding is provided by the HSE. Furthermore, the HSE can only fund organisations for the purpose of providing health services on its behalf. However, in May 2018, one-off bridging funding of €195,000 was provided by the Department of Health to the Irish Deaf Society to allow it to resolve its financial issues. This was provided on an exceptional, once-off basis and the Department made it clear that it would not be repeated in the future. The Department urged the organisation to take immediate steps to resolve its ongoing funding requirements. It would appear that the Irish Deaf Society has not made much progress in this regard and it has submitted a further application to the HSE for core funding for 2019. The HSE has reviewed this submission and has again declined the society's funding request on the basis that it does not provide health-related services. This decision has been confirmed in writing to the Irish Deaf Society. I know that the Minister of State, Deputy McGrath, is currently in discussions with his Cabinet colleagues to try to resolve the Irish Deaf Society's financial difficulties. These discussions have been very positive so far and the Minister of State will be in a position in the coming days to confirm the outcome of these discussions.

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