Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The south and south west of Donegal have been without respite services for more than a year after Seaview Respite House, Mountcharles, closed last December. The home, outside Donegal town, was owned and operated by the HSE to provide residential respite care for physically and intellectually disabled people across south-west Donegal. The HSE tendered the service initially, indicating that a full service of seven days per week would be provided by the successful applicant. However, when RehabCare was given the contract, the service was, to the despair of families across Donegal, for only five days per week, from Monday to Friday. Over 100 families were using the services for much-needed respite for themselves and those they cared for.

The transfer of services to RehabCare has been besieged by delay after delay. Seaview Respite House was due to open by the end of July this year. The opening was then extended until the end of August, then September, then November and now December. Families and service users have been without a respite service for the entire summer, a time when families spend quality time together and when holidays and outings are common.

Families were further angered when, at a public meeting I attended in recent weeks, the HSE confirmed that while the facility will be fully transferred to RehabCare in December, it will not be open for service users until 13 January 2020 and will operate for only five days per week. No one, including me, believes for a second that this deadline will be met, although we hope it will be.

Really and truly, the deadline is not the major issue. The latest setback for families comes after years of disruptions to services at the centre caused by staffing shortages and rostering issues. I have been raising these issues for many years, yet there is still no full-time respite service available for families in south-west Donegal.

The transfer of management to RehabCare was supposed to be for the benefit of all families who depend deeply on this service but even when it reopens in January, if it does, families will be provided with a restricted service once again. The main reason for the years of delays by the HSE is that it is trying to use the transition to RehabCare so as not to deal with funding requirements to address the over-expenditure in the health sector.

Families in Donegal have been through enough. It is time to address the reasons behind these delays once and for all and commit to reinstating a full-time service - not a Monday-to-Friday service, which would be basically useless, but a service for seven days per week that would be of benefit to the families and their loved ones. That is the least they deserve. Will the Government ensure that the Seaview facility opens in January and that everything will be done to ensure a seven days per week respite service will be reinstated from then on?

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