David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We have had several debates on disability services in this House in recent years and especially over the last 12 months. These have been particularly on the children's disability network teams but go across a whole range of areas impacting children and adults. We certainly have introduced a number of Private Members' motions and there has been very significant debate. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, visited many counties and spoke to parents of children with disabilities. I am sure she heard the same stories that we did of parents who simply cannot get access to services for their children. It is really frustrating for them when they see a review that was carried out, a ten-year plan that is not being resourced. There is no implementation plan and no annual budgeting. Based on the capacity review that was set up, the cost is between €600 million and €750 million over ten years. However, the recently announced budget contains just €29 million of new funding for measures across all the services for people with disabilities which is a drop in the ocean compared with what is needed. We proposed a package of measures costing €153 million because that is the scale of the investment which I believe is necessary.

Some 1,800 individuals are living in congregated settings and 1,300 individuals under 65 are inappropriately placed in nursing homes. There is no clarity on when they will be moved out. I do not see any multi-annual plan. Some 7,000 people are in need of personal assistance with no support for independent living in the coming years. This was also part of the capacity review but again I do not see any multi-annual plan. It certainly fails to give a break to parents and carers in need of respite services with at least 20,000 additional respite hours and 7,400 day-service places needed over the next ten years.

The capacity review was done to identify needs and it is up to politicians and a political system to provide the funding for it. I would imagine the Minister of State looked for more money. Ministers do that and there are tensions within governments. The Minister of State needs to fight her corner. We have met all the advocate groups in recent weeks. They have told us very clearly they are disappointed in the extreme. I am sure all the parents who are battling to get services for their children are equally disappointed. Organisations, including Independent Living Movement Ireland and many others, are concerned that even the figures in the capacity review are not accurate when demographic changes are considered. They would argue that there is even greater need in some areas.

I finish by raising the issue of the children's disability network teams. I know we have raised this time and again. The Minister of State has come back to us and asked what solutions we have and we have talked about solutions. We need once and for all to put in place a workforce planning strategy that addresses the core problems in this sector. We know we need to train more graduates and obviously that needs to be done across the board in healthcare. We need at least double the number of graduate and undergraduate training places. We also need to deal with a range of retention and recruitment issues. Time and again we have raised this with the Minister of State. Deputy Tully and I visited a number of network teams that are providing these services. There are section 38 section and 39 workers who are on lower rates of pay and do not have pension entitlements doing exactly the same work in the same team as a HSE employee. How in God's name is that sustainable? How can it be right? That is causing some problems.

We looked for a sponsorship programme to be rolled out. We looked for therapy assistant grade positions to be made available. We looked for an international recruitment campaign. I am pleased that some of these grades are now on the critical skills list which is important. However, not enough is being done. I am not confident that there is a plan in place. The bottom line is that the people who are failing are those children.

Almost a year ago, Deputy Tully arranged a briefing in the audiovisual room with parents of children with disabilities. As I have said to the Minister of State before, it was heartbreaking to hear their stories. I have travelled the length and breadth of the State and attended public meetings. Parents are sick and tired of hearing about plans, strategies and reviews. All they want are services for their children and some sense that we will get a grip on the waiting lists.

The State was taken to court because it was taking shortcuts with assessments of need and they are now on hold. While that is an issue, the biggest issue is to have the capacity and the staff to provide services to those children, irrespective of whether they have an assessment. The short answer is that for far too many of those young people we do not. It is heartbreaking to look at a child or talk to the parent of a young adult where early intervention has passed them by. We know it will happen again, which is shameful.

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