Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the motion and thank my colleague, Deputy Cairns, for bringing it forward. I welcome everyone watching today in the Gallery and elsewhere. This is a very important motion highlighting the huge inequalities, injustices and exclusion faced by people with disabilities. All of us as Deputies are hugely aware of the impact of this on people with disabilities. We hear from people with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities all the time who have been let down badly. We hear about children waiting for assessments for years before they can get any supports, children who when they finally get their assessments get minimal levels of support, parents who cannot afford to get private support for their children being woefully left behind and parents being left in the dark and not getting the information they need to support their children. All too often, we hear from families trying their best to support their family members with disabilities who face other challenges. I was contacted recently, for example, by a parent who is struggling to get supports for her child and who is living in a single room in her mother's house with her partner and two children because they cannot afford to rent privately at the moment.

As the Social Democrats' housing spokesperson, I will focus on the impact of the lack of proper financial supports for people with disabilities on housing. Deputy Cairns referenced earlier the excellent report by the Ombudsman, Wasted Lives:Time for a better future for younger people in Nursing Homes, which found that more than 1,300 people with disabilities aged under 65 are living in nursing homes that are completely inappropriate for their needs. One of the key findings of the report was that personal finance was one of the key issues facing people with disabilities living in nursing homes. The report said that disposable income of people with disabilities fell by 7.4% between 2010 and 2015, a drop of more than €1,000. I will list a few examples from that report regarding how this directly affects people. The report states:

Charles is a 53 year old man with a progressive neurological condition. He has been in a nursing home for just under two years. Prior to this, he was living in council accommodation. Because he is unhappy in the nursing home, he continues to pay rent for his council accommodation, even though it is not wheelchair accessible.

It goes on to state, "He says that he has very little disposable income and his parents assist him with expenses such as clothing". This is a 53-year-old man.

The report goes on to highlight the case of Liam, a 52 year old man with a rare progressive neurological condition. It states:

Liam had been attending swimming outside the nursing home and he enjoyed this but he said that he had to pay for the swimming pool and for transport to and from the pool. He stopped going as he felt that he could not afford this. His activities are now very limited.

The report continued with the example of Rose, a 52-year-old woman with a brain injury. The report stated:

When my Office visited Rose, she was visibly in a lot of pain and she said that she had hurt her lower back. Her advocate was present and suggested that she attend the Accident and Emergency Department. She said that she could not afford this. The nursing home had assessed her and told her that she would need to be accompanied by an escort if she left the nursing home, due to difficulties with her mobility. The nursing home charged €23 per hour for this escort [which she could not afford].

Another example in the report is the case of Leah, a 49-year-old woman with multiple complex diagnoses including physical disability, intellectual disability and cancer. The report states:

Her wheelchair is too big for wheelchair taxis and so she needs a minibus to get to hospital appointments. This costs €300 or €500 per trip, depending on where her appointment is. ... Leah's mother advised my Office that she had to subsidise Leah but this was difficult as she was in receipt of an old age pension ... Leah is [therefore] restricted to her room.

That is the lived reality of some people with disabilities in nursing homes who should not be there. One person was paying their rent to the council for social housing they could not physically access. Another person who was in pain and needed medical care was unable to access that because of transport costs.

Yesterday, the Tánaiste said that there should not be time in the Dáil to discuss motions like this. That is what he said. I want to say in the strongest possible terms that these motions are needed. We do need time in the Dáil to discuss these issues and highlight this. We need action from Government on this because it is just not acceptable in a modern republic that people with disabilities who need medical treatment cannot afford to get it and that a person had to stop the one activity he was enjoying, namely, going swimming, because he was not getting sufficient financial support for that. That is not acceptable.

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