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

I thank the Deputies for raising this important issue and for giving me the opportunity to explain the situation and to dispel many of the myths that appeared over the summer, particularly in the national media. It gives me the opportunity to outline the position in respect of the rehabilitative training, RT, bonus payment. The Government's priority is to provide access to high quality day services to as many people with disabilities as possible. The HSE currently funds day services for more than 27,000 people with disabilities. These services include rehabilitative training programmes. Placements in day services are invaluable as they provide people with disabilities with a range of supports to allow them to make the type of choices available to other adults, enabling them to live independent lives of their choosing.

The HSE's New Directions policy seeks to reconfigure and personalise HSE-funded adult day services and offers a flexible and individualised set of supports to enable each person to live a life of his or her choosing in accordance with his or her own wishes and needs. Rehabilitative training programmes are designed to equip participants with basic personal, social and work-related skills. Approximately 2,300 people attend rehabilitative training programmes and, since the start of September, approximately 400 school leavers have commenced RT programmes.

The RT bonus payment is currently paid at a rate of €31.80 per week to attendees of these rehabilitative training programmes, who can attend for a period of up to four years. The RT bonus was introduced in 2001, aligned with a similar FÁS training bonus that later became the SOLAS vocational training programme payment. It is important to note that this payment was reduced in 2011 and discontinued in 2012. Over the next four years, from September 2019, the RT bonus will cease to apply to new attendees, rather, the money that would have been spent on the bonus, estimated at approximately €3.7 million over four years, will be redirected to address unmet need in day service provision for people with disabilities. The redirected funding, which I have asked the director general of the HSE to ring-fence, will create approximately - wait for it - 148 additional full day placements or 370 additional enhanced day places nationally for those with a reduced service or no service, based on priority need. These new day services will be of great support to those with a disability and their families. Each community healthcare organisation, CHO, will have the flexibility to redirect its own savings to address local service requirements and the HSE has been asked to report regularly to the Department of Health on the additional placements realised.

I emphasise that current participants in rehabilitative training programmes will not be affected and that their payments will continue until they complete their four-year programme. It is important to note that while the majority of attendees of HSE day services qualify for disability allowance, which is paid at a rate of €203 per week and also qualifies them for a free travel pass, the additional RT bonus payment is only payable to attendees of rehabilitative training programmes. This decision will maximise the use of finite resources and, crucially, will ensure that all attendees of HSE-funded day services have the same level of support.

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