Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming in. We have talked about some of the cases over the last few months and she has been very helpful. I want to put that on the record.

The Minister of State will be well aware that in all counties the parents of children or young adults with challenging behaviour, intellectual disabilities do their best right through their life as long as they can. There are daycare services where this is done, which I recognise, and there is respite but there is one instance that I have discussed with the Minister of State. People get older, obviously, and the other person may lose their health. There can be a worry about making sure that their loved one is looked after. This happens right around the country; it is not "my back door" stuff.

Unfortunately, there has been an issue in the past six or eight months. I compliment the Minister of State, because any time I have gone to her she has tried to help me, and also John Fitzmaurice in the HSE. We get a reply back from one service provider in particular, Ability West, that it does not have the funding to do something. Then you go to John Fitzmaurice and try to beat him up about funding and, in fairness, funding would be made available, but then you get something back that says that the patient will have to be assessed. The Minister of State will be aware that in the case that I am on about, among others we have talked about, when someone unfortunately passes on in one of those residential places, they then have to assess the person. For whatever reason, the person will offer every excuse and they do not have staff etc. and parents are left in limbo. It is regrettable.

We need a sea change in how we are doing this. In rural Ireland it is not the solution to send someone from Glinsk to Galway city or 50 or 60 miles away. Their parents may be getting old and they love to see that person. They have saved the State a fortune over the years because many of these people are incontinent and non-verbal. Their families have done everything possible right throughout their lives and it breaks their hearts to let go but for the betterment of those young and middle aged people or older adults, they do this to make sure they have a secure future when their loved one is moving on or in bad health. Great people set up a lot of the foundations down through the years with voluntary groups collecting money and all of that but something has changed in the last six months to a year where there are now a lot of refusals. In every county in Ireland there are children with challenging behaviours and disabilities and we need to make sure that we plan for the future to accommodate those as citizens of this country as much as possible. Close to me at home in Creggs, and the Minister of State has been down there, I hope a proposal will soon go in about trying to do that very thing of bringing the services closer to the areas where they are required. I hope Ger Dowd will soon send something in to the Minister of State and to John Fitzmaurice and that that can be looked at and assessed, and they would work with the community on that into the future. It is very frustrating. The Minister of State will have seen the case when we were told that someone was going to the family to assess the person. They did not come out for a week after that. The language they use is mesmerising. Those people need help. I ask the Minister of State to try to resolve that case especially. I thank her for everything up until now.

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