Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the service providers and the people they serve, as well as those workers who are in the Gallery this evening, and anyone who is watching this debate from home. I acknowledge the pain and anguish caused by the lastminute.comapproach of the Government in addressing the long-standing issues around pay. I commend the civil servants and the representatives of the unions, led by Liam Berney, on drafting proposals in the early hours of this morning. One can only imagine what it was like for families going to bed last night not knowing if they would have a service to wake up to this morning.

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That is on the Minister, just in case he thinks it is on anybody else, because the unions have been available for those discussions since last July.

In a Topical Issue debate here just before the summer, I spoke about the unacceptably long children's disability network team, CDNT, waiting lists that the children in my constituency face. There are close to 1,000 kids on the list. In his response, the Minister said:

The key enabler to address these figures is recruitment. We need to see therapists installed in teams to enhance capacity. As we are all aware, CDNTs are experiencing challenges in the recruitment and retention of health and social care professionals. Unfortunately, while funding has been allocated ... CHO DNCC is experiencing an average vacancy rate of 35%.

The Minister went on to say that, in Balbriggan, an area with one of the youngest populations in my constituency, the vacancy rate was 40%. That was just before the summer. The vacancy rate has since disimproved because a number of people have left. Why are they leaving? They are leaving because it is not an attractive place to work. That has nothing to do with the hours and, in some instances, it has nothing to do with the paperwork. It has to do with the fact that, every single day, they are meeting families that they are letting down. They know that the service is not addressing their needs and they are saying sorry all of the time. They were not trained to say sorry; they were trained to deliver services and work with families. That is the job that they want to do, that they love and that we need them to do. Instead, they spend all of their time apologising for shortcomings in the service and for the fact that, while a family's child needs a certain number of hours in intervention, only a tiny percentage of that is available to him or her.

The Minister's budget was a disaster for the kids in my area. They are going to be left waiting for CDNT appointments. It was a disaster for carers who need support and for anyone struggling to provide services. The Minister must realise that the allocation for disability services is not adequate and simply must be revised. People with disabilities, family carers, workers in the sector and service providers need some stability so that they can plan. That is why the unions balloted their members and what led them to strike. They wanted a sustainable funding model to enable their members to plan. The people being served should be at the heart of Government policy but, when I read its budget, it became very apparent that they were an afterthought at best and that they are not central to the thinking of this Government. People with disabilities are right to feel abandoned.

I echo the call from my colleague, an Teachta Cullinane, for the Minister to outline in detail the one-off measures to be provided to address cost-of-living pressures. If he cannot do that, if he does not have those figures and if it is not going to happen, I ask the Minister to look to the Gallery and explain in detail why the people up there and the people whom they serve are somehow exempt from the cost-of-living crisis.

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