Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

People with disabilities face some of the greatest challenges in this country. It is a very poor reflection on the political system in this country that this is still the case. Some 13.5% of people have disabilities. That is about 640,000 people. This group is at significantly greater risk of poverty, exclusion and unemployment because of their disabilities. That should not,and does not have to be, the case. Many of us in this House will have seen the RTÉ "Prime Time" programme last Tuesday night. We heard from a family who challenged everybody who was watching the programme and, in particular, challenged the Government regarding its failure to address the basic needs of this family.

Darren Milne and his partner, Gillian Bolger, have twin boys with autism, and another child. They spoke about how they went through an entire year without any support whatsoever. They had no school placement, no home tuition and both of the parents had to stay at home to care for their two children with autism. That was not all, however. Darren spoke very poignantly and emotionally about what that actually meant for the family. Apart from the huge emotional, physical and mental drain that caused the family, it also meant that Darren had to spend long periods away from work. Luckily, he is with Dublin bus and that was facilitated. Spending those long periods away from work without an income, however, meant the couple fell behind with all of their bills, got into mortgage difficulty and were facing home repossession.

They spoke in public about all of their experiences and it is shocking that they had to do that. All of what they suffered came about because of the State's failure to provide basic health and education services for their two children with autism. That is a scandal by any standard. It should cause members of the Government to hang their heads in shame. We talk a great deal about equality and inclusion. A situation such as this, however, is the hard face of the lack of action by the Government and the lack of priority being given to the whole area of disability. That is particularly the case for people with autism. The twins' mother, Gillian, spoke about having to fight for everything. Not only was she exhausted from caring for the children, but she was also exhausted from having to fight for every single service they needed.

This story is replicated many times all around the country. There is no doubt many families face what is, in effect, a post code lottery when it comes to accessing school places or the basic therapeutic services that simply do not exist in many regions. The denial of those basic services results in a denial of those children's basic human rights. This Government should be ashamed of that. AsIAm, the very good advocacy organisation working in this area, has regularly drawn attention to these shortcomings. I also acknowledge Mr. Graham Manning, who has done so much work in identifying the dearth of data and information about this area. The basic fact is that if we do not measure things, those things do not matter. This is the case in this situation. We have put forward a number of amendments and I hope the Fianna Fáil party will accept them to strengthen its good and comprehensive motion. I hope Fianna Fáil will also raise this issue in the budget negotiations.

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