Dáil debates

Tuesday, 19 November 2019

Personal Assistance Service: Motion

 

9:45 pm

Photo of Michael MoynihanMichael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Pringle and his group for bringing forward the motion. I welcome the visitors to the Gallery. This is a very important motion. A whole raft of issues around it need to be discussed. Deputy Rabbitte referred to a whole-of-government approach to this issue. She mentioned the amount of money being spent on people who could live independently if personal assistance hours, home help hours or home care packages were provided for them, compared to what it costs the State to keep them in long-stay beds or community settings. They would love to be living at home and their families would love if they could live in what would be called home.

Many community initiatives have built sheltered housing, as it is known, and nearly every community in Ireland has some. Some people, however, are unable to get personal assistance to allow them live in those community settings. For all the fine words uttered during this discussion, on medical cards and everything else, if we are to be serious about people with disabilities and integrating them into communities as much as is humanly possible in a style of daily life they can undertake themselves, the issue of personal assistance has to be a priority. Each time we go to the Departmental and the HSE looking for funding, there always seems to be a block and no funding is available.

In recent weeks, I have had a situation where we were trying to get somebody home from Dún Laoghaire. We have been told, categorically, that there is no mechanism to fund that at present. That is not good enough. If one looks at what maintaining a person in a high-dependency unit like Dún Laoghaire costs the State, it would be a fraction of the cost to provide personal assistance or a home care package to person. If we are going to be serious about the content and spirit of this motion, which has the agreement of the entire House, a whole-of-government approach must be taken and there must be an examination of how much money is being put into different pockets. The word used by someone administering the funds was "silos", as opposed to there being cross-funding.

Many of us are involved in trying to get personal assistants for people. When they start working with those people, the resulting confidence is noticeable. Some people have been able to engage in employment and others have gone back to education, including night courses, and have benefited enormously, as have their families and communities. We as a nation have also benefited. The Government, therefore, needs to look at the personal assistance scheme and ensure proper funding is in place. It must also be ascertained that money is not being spent unwisely in trying to keep people long-term in institutions, when a fraction of the cost would encourage and enable people to live at home.

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