Dáil debates
Tuesday, 18 June 2024
Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions
Care Services
Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source
There is no doubt that respite is not one-size-fits-all. Respite needs to be a suite of measures whether it is after-school, Saturday clubs, sibling clubs or holiday camps as well as the in-home support, the residential part of it, the shared care and the home support. It is a suite of measures. Where families are finding that the in-home support is not actually meeting their needs, that is the dialogue required to move to the next level or the next rung of the ladder, as I call it, of what is available in the suite of options, which would in that case be either the home sharing or the shared-care model before we move to that more residential respite. Once they start on that trajectory, they are actually looking at accessing residential respite somewhere down along the line into a full-time capacity. However, keeping that family unit in place for as long as possible with the shared-care or the home-shared model is a better fit for families because it prevents moving to the residential option too early.
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