Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this motion. Every politician has experience of what is happening in his or her constituency and what is going wrong. We can all keep talking about what is wrong but it is a question of how to find solutions. The Government will tell us money is not the problem; however, if it is not the problem, how come section 38 and section 39 workers are on different pay scales and not treated the same as HSE workers doing the same job? What we are doing is playing one against the other. The HSE is robbing people from the organisations. Ability West, which the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte is familiar with, closed Avalon, a residential service in Galway city, in April. It had to take staff out of it to put them into other places to try to keep them up to the HIQA standard. By satisfying HIQA, we have lost a residential service. That is not right. We are just going the wrong way with it. Closing services is not the cure. We have to start at the root and ensure people are paid to do their job.

The respite grant should be increased in line with inflation and beyond that. We must consider seriously the carer's allowance and how quickly we can sort it out. Getting somebody a carer's allowance can take 12 to 14 weeks from the time of application, which is wrong. It should be done in a couple of weeks if we are serious about it.

One of the people who came to my constituency office with an issue was a 35-year-old man with two children with special needs. He broke down in my clinic for the simple reason that he does not know what will happen his children when he passes away. He is a young man but is thinking like this already. On "Liveline" or another radio programme, I heard a woman speaking about her child. She said she was "afraid to die" for the simple reason that she did not know what would happen her son afterwards. She said she would die in the belief she had failed him. That is not right. It is not the way people should be living. People of 35 years with two young children should be enjoying life and the fact that they are bringing up children rather than breaking down. I am referring to the circumstances of professional people who break down in my office or anybody else's office.

I am not blaming the two Ministers of State opposite but saying they are in government and that we need to start to turn things around. This matter is historical. During the period of austerity, we took money off the services in question because those availing of them were silent, not the people who could shout and roar. We have not repaid them since.

I do not believe we have any overnight services in Galway East, my constituency. We certainly do not have any residential services. There is talk about them. A person in my constituency was offered residential care in Castlerea or Westport. Is that respite? It is absolutely crazy. It is important that we genuinely consider those with a disability and the respite that carers need, asking what we will do for those who need a service.

Another major issue is that home care hours are not available even though they are being allocated to people. A man who rang me two weeks ago is in his 70s and has a 47-year-old son who was allocated three hours of respite in 2019. He has not seen it since. Now the allocation has gone up to ten hours but he does not know whether he will get one hour. I am referring to a man in his 70s and his wife who are looking after a 47-year-old son with special needs and who cannot get home help hours.

The contract for private care providers has been delayed for I do not know how many years. The Government should not blame Covid for this. It has gone way past that; it is a joke. There are young people who spend perhaps a year or two with a home care provider after training and then move to the HSE. That is not right. We have to have parity so we have quality. There is a huge body of work to be done in this regard.

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