Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. Without getting into specifics I know exactly case that the Deputy is talking about. I cannot imagine what it is like for that mum needing that assistance or for any mother or father as they age who needs that assistance to ensure that before their time comes they have catered for their loved one. There is a huge amount of unmet need out there and a huge amount of emergency residential places required which means there is no capacity building whatever for the planned phase of support. To be fair to John Fitzmaurice and his team last year, they assisted in 28 planned residential spaces in county Galway. Galway has 458 people availing of residential spaces. That is the guts of 120 houses. That does not mean that providers cannot be empathetic or understanding and that they cannot reorganise and be a bit more agile because there is a willingness there and funding available within the HSE to make things happen.

At no stage should a person be left abandoned and unsupported or a family feel it is abandoned and unsupported. That totally goes against the ethos of this Government and it certainly goes against the ethos of how I aspire to try to support families. That is why over the past three years, I have always ensured there was enough funding there so that we could start chipping into that unmet need. I hope over the coming months, as we prepare for the budget, that the unmet need and capacity building that is so badly required will support people like John Fitzmaurice and all his colleagues in the HSE. We have funding there and we must also work in partnership with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to ensure there is housing coming on stream and that at the same time the revenue pool is there to support the families who have parents over 70, 80 and 90 so that they can have proper transitional support and at the same time ensure that when an emergency case presents, and a family’s back is to the wall, the funding should be the last issue. It should be the resource to ensure that the staff and the bed is available and that a person can be cared for as close to their home as possible. We talk about new directions. New directions is about ensuring that people are as close to home as possible and feel supported in the community where they are known and minded. I look forward to the proposal that Ger Dowd and his colleague, Kieran, will send in to me.

To return to the matter the Deputy has raised, it is unfortunate that over the past 12 months, many people have come forward who have been seeking residential spaces. They do not feel they have been supported or that the capacity has been created to meet their needs. Sometimes, where they are already availing of five-day services, they need an extra two days to ensure that a full service is made available to them. That is one of the issues that John Fitzmaurice is very clear about. To be honest, it does not sit well with the disability manager either, that we have to go to private providers when there are well-established service providers who have staff, a skillset and who also know the various people who are in need. They know their needs and their wants. They know their abilities and how to mind them.

I will continue to work with the Deputy on that case and, to be fair to the head of disability, so will he. That case is an incredibly harsh one. It is unfortunate that Deputy Fitzmaurice has been raising this for the last four months and that family still has no positive resolution.

See this speech in context