Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising two issues in his leaders' question. The first relates to the closure of beds. I do not know the specific local circumstances of Killarney or, indeed, Columbanus house which the Deputy mentioned. I met with the HSE for the south region on Friday last. They said they were actively looking for additional beds, in terms of community nursing beds and rehabilitation beds, with a view to making sure that there were proper placements and appropriate beds, for example, for patients who had left acute hospitals and who needed convalescence or nursing home beds. It would appear to me that this may be a HIQA reconfiguration where HIQA would say one has to move from the wards to better single-room en suite accommodation. That has been going on for quite some time and has had an impact on certain centres. I do not know whether that applies here or not. What I know is that quite a substantial amount of funding has been provided to enable the HSE in all regions of the country to procure and provide for additional rehabilitation beds and additional beds in nursing homes with a view to making sure that there is a proper flow through our acute hospital system on an ongoing basis from here right through to the middle of next year and beyond. If the Deputy gives me the details of the specific cases, I will pursue them and get replies for him. It is more, not less, beds we need to deal with the impact of Covid-19.

Second, Covid-19 has had an unfortunate negative impact on the provision of services for adults with disabilities, particularly in terms of day-care services. Nonetheless, there has been a programme since August of restoring aspects of those disability services for as many people as possible. For example, 19,000 people with a disability attend the adult day services. I refer to the disability day-service locations which closed in March. Day services reopened at approximately 40% capacity throughout August and early September. The increased funding has been provided already so that the level of service available to people attending adult day services can be increased as well. Additional funding has been provided in the winter initiative to provide for an additional services and additional volume of services, likewise for school-leavers and also intensive support packages to deliver to quite a number of individuals who are in a chronic situation. There is quite a number of people in emergency situations which I am particularly concerned about, as are the services on the ground. We intend to work with the service providers to see can we deal with those emergency situations more effectively than has been the case to date.

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