Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This is certainly a detailed and technical Bill. There is a consensus that it will be supported and that disability services need to be reformed. The question is whether it will improve services for those who are in the disability services, their families and all of the workers who provide this very important service. The question is whether it makes the service better because it is reporting to two Ministers, given it has gone from the Minister for Justice to the Minister for Health and the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, or that is my understanding and I stand to be corrected if I am wrong on that.

As I said, this is about improving services in regard to disability, intervention and resources. Last year, a community-based service, St. John of God’s, was in serious difficulty; in fact, it was in so much difficulty there was talk of the liquidation of the service. I used to work with St. John of God’s a long time ago. It is a great service that provides a community-based service and a day service. My former workmates were very concerned and are still concerned about the future of St. John of God’s because there was an enormous deficit of up to €35 million. The service cannot be run if it is constantly having to think about deficits – it just cannot have that. People cannot run a service when they are talking about liquidation and not being able to fund the service. That has to be addressed in a serious way. When we talk about public health in regard to community-based services, I have an issue as to why it is kind of NGOed out. I do not understand that. Even though St. John of God’s, Stewarts and all of those services provide an amazing service, they should not have a situation where funding is a serious issue.

Community-based disability services have a chequered history in this country. People were institutionalised, marginalised and stigmatised. Gladly, we have moved on. It is not perfect by any means but services have got better and people have gone from that kind of institutionalised setting to a more community-based setting and they have rights. For a long time, people with disabilities were marginalised. They faced poverty, deprivation and unemployment, and they were completely marginalised. That has improved, although it is not perfect by any means. Hopefully, this new formalisation will mean things improve for everybody, not only those who are living with a disability but also their families and the workers who provide a very good service.

At the heart of disability is that somebody should not be handicapped by that term and they should have a fulfilled life, like anybody else. That is what this holistic approach is about. Anybody could be in this situation. We want to improve life for those with a disability in regard to all of the things which we sometimes take for granted.

I wish the Minister of State the best in regard to this new arrangement. It is not perfect by any means. I could go on about assessment of needs and the horror stories around that, where people have to approach Deputies. As I said to the Minister of State before, if families and parents are approaching Deputies, we know there is something really wrong because we are the last people they should be talking to. I wish the Minister of State the best.

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