Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for the opportunity to speak on this. I welcome the progress made in the talks. However, I deplore the fact that, when I was watching television last night, people with disability had to appeal in such a manner on a television programme. That is just one example, as the Minister of State knows, of different programmes, including on the radio, appealing to us to implement the rights that they are entitled to. I know the Minister of State has inherited the situation and I have often paid tribute to her. Her heart is in the right place. One despairs after a while of making the same speeches over and over again.

If I look at where all of this started, with the division from the people working directly for the Health Service Executive, it was when we started to commodify the caring services. The Progressive Democrats took that to a whole new level. We talked about products. I say that from ten years of experience of sitting on the health forum, where Fianna Fáil, unfortunately, was led by the Progressive Democrats with regard to the privatisation of our services. The figures speak for themselves. Some 80% of nursing homes are private and 20% are public. It is similar with our home care services. We have outsourced them to the non-profit sector and indeed the profit sector. When I look at this and ask what I am going to say and how one keeps doing this, then, as usual, I remind myself that I am earning a good salary, have a privilege, can use my voice, and I start to look at the reports.

We have so many reports. We have had the Indecon report and we are all waiting for the report on the cost of disability payment. It is the most basic thing that should have been brought in with the budget but it was not brought in. We know the price estimate from Indecon for somebody who has a disability goes up to €12,000 or €13,000 per year. All the Opposition asked for was, at the very least, to bring in the cost of disability payment. That is not a reality.

I looked at the report by TASC, the think-tank, and The Wheel. It gives us a background in the latest report. There is a history of reports. The report tells us that, in 2018, the executive of The Wheel pointed out a chronic trend of losing staff and being unable to retain staff. In June 2019, there was a report called Breaking Point: Why Investment is Needed Now to Ensure the Sustainability of Quality Services for Children and Families, which was commissioned by Barnardos. In May 2021, Fórsa commissioned a report, authored by Brian Harvey, entitled A New Systemic Funding Model: The voluntary and community sector in the 2020s. The reports outlined the problems and what is happening and put that Government on notice. I am only going from 2018. I could go further back if I had more time.

This report from 2023 refers to the perpetuation of the two-tier pay and resource allocation system and the effect on staffing. It clearly sets out the effect on staffing, the low morale and the constant lack of staff. That is among the staff. Can the Minister of State imagine what it is doing to services on the ground? In Galway, many people have come into my office, at their wits' end, about not having services, respite and so on. This report was produced earlier this year. It has practical recommendations. I have not heard the Minister of State or any Minister refer to them and whether they have taken the recommendations on board.

I refer to the part of the report entitled, "Conclusion: Policy Recommendations". There are 14 recommendations. No. 14 is: "Raise the status of the sector by recognizing within policy that without it, the State would be unable to deliver necessary services to the most vulnerable populations." I would like to move away from the words "vulnerable" and "victims". People deserve services as a right. We pay taxes so that we can have a country that provides services as a right. How many more reports do we need?

Maybe the Minister of State could deal with the policy recommendations from this report, which essentially refers, as my colleague did, to providing funding for pensions, training, travel and other costs, to make the delivery of not-for-profit work more attractive. These services should be provided by the State but a decision has been made to use the community and voluntary sector, which is difficult enough for me when the State is abdicating responsibility and pushing it out. On top of that, it is helping the profit companies to make more profit. I would like any changes that are made to have a view to long-term, sustainable, not-for-profit services. I do not know why we have to keep setting up services with more CEOs and so on. That is the position that we have arrived at. At least there is a substantial number of non-profit services.

See this speech in context