Dáil debates

Wednesday, 29 July 2020

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

 

12:10 pm

Photo of Alan KellyAlan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I raise an issue with the Taoiseach on which I would appreciate his direct intervention. It concerns people with intellectual disabilities. We are dealing with more than a few hundred people in this case. I appreciate that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is present to hear this as well. I am asking the Taoiseach and the Minister of State to go out and meet the people involved. Can the Taoiseach imagine that in the middle of a pandemic we have families and individuals with intellectual disabilities protesting outside? Can he imagine that they are the first group, during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, that has come to protest outside our national Parliament? What is that telling us?

I have raised this issue three weeks in a row now. Granted, the two previous occasions were with the Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Varadkar, and on the second occasion, he delegated to the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte. We are not going to leave these people behind; we are currently leaving them behind. It is completely and utterly unacceptable. We live in a republic and we must treat everybody equally. Most of all, we, as legislators in our national Parliament, and the Government need to ensure that our most vulnerable people during this crisis are protected at all costs - and, by god, these are our most vulnerable people. I have spoken with the families. Enough is Enough is the banner under which they are protesting outside. I ask the Taoiseach and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, to go out and meet them. Please surprise me and go and do that. Please do that because I think the Taoiseach needs to hear their stories.

The issue here is that these people have been forgotten about. They have had no day services and they are losing the will to live. They have no stimulation. Routine is everything in their lives. My friend, Philip Kelly, who is no relation and whom I met here in Dublin, asked me to ask the Taoiseach to allow him to go back to work. He calls his day service "work". He makes his contribution. I could talk also about Leah, for whom every day feels like Groundhog Day; or Darragh, who cannot understand or necessarily remember how the services were being provided and now the differential; or Stephen, whose parents believe he is developing habits they are worried about; or Padraig, who says his life has been turned upside down; or Alan, who feels very much that he is being discriminated against and treated very badly. These people and their families are being discriminated against and left behind.

We have had a reopening roadmap set out for our schools. The same timelines must be provided for the people protesting outside. Will the Taoiseach commit to that today? Having raised this issue, which I am passionate about, I do not want to go out to the people outside and say the Minister issued a statement last night, all of a sudden, and that from 4 August, we will know the dates for reopening. I will do so, however. I want to know when the services will fully reopen, in the same way we are treating everybody else in education. I want to know when these people will get appropriate accommodation and staff and when the staff who have been transferred to residential care facilities will be place in day services again.

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