David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is one of dozens of debates on disabilities we have had in this Dáil term. My party, Sinn Féin, has brought forward five separate motions on the issue of disabilities. On the Government's record, this is a government that put in place a capacity review. It was a ten-year review that set out how much funding was needed, what capacity was needed in terms of, for example, staff and resources for decongregation and what supports were needed for children and adults in all of the different areas of disability services. The disability capacity review has never been properly funded. We then had an action plan for disability services. Of course, we welcome it when plans are put in place but the problem is that the plans are not delivered on. We have just had a budget that many disability organisations and people with disabilities tell us does not make enough funding available even to deliver the plan the Government has in place, which we know is inadequate in itself.

The most difficult meetings I have had over the long years I have been a Member of the Oireachtas and a councillor are those relating to children with disabilities and to access to services in particular. When we raised issues in respect of assessments of need today, the Taoiseach made the point that, while these assessments are important, what is more important is that children get access to services. I agree with that. We want children to get access to services but we know that an assessment of need is important for a child as a gateway into some services, particularly in schools, where there is competition for scarce resources. Even if we accept the Taoiseach's logic that we need to provide the services for children first, which I do, I talk to parents all of the time who have to battle with the State to get access to basic services for their children. While they are waiting for an assessment of need, some children will get services and some will not. The word parents often use when telling me about the service their children get is "patchy". They might get some element of what they need. In very rare circumstances, they may get all of it. However, they may get none of it. The family then has to pay for services privately. That is really traumatic for them when they are trying to get access to the best services for their children.

We have the same situation in adult disability services. I was dealing with a lady regarding her child. This person is in his 40s. He is an adult but she describes him as a child. He lives in Lismore, County Waterford. He accesses day services in Waterford city because there are no day services in Dungarvan. She has to drop him off at a drop-off point outside Dungarvan in Kilmacthomas. She has to drive to Kilmacthomas every day, which is a long drive from Lismore, to drop him off very early in the morning to get into the day service. He then has to get support and a bus to get back again. She gets no support whatsoever. The first problem is that the transport is not there and she has to do the driving. The second problem is that day services do not exist in Dungarvan. That is a problem not just for her, but for many children with profound disabilities in west Waterford. It is the same right across the State.

I dealt with another couple I met a number of weeks ago. They are in their 80s. They have a child - they again call him a child - who is in his 50s who has a severe intellectual disability. They are worried about what will happen to him when they pass away.

They are worried because they had to fight tooth and nail to get whatever services their adult child has received right through his childhood and adult life. They told me that everything was a battle. They are worried because of the lack of independent living opportunities that exist. We need to do much more. The reason we have capacity reviews and so-called action plans is, as I understand it, that we look at the identified need, then we provide the resources and then we provide the services, but that is not people's lived reality or experience. It certainly is not the lived reality of people with disabilities or the parents either. It seems to be a constant battle. There are other issues with payments to people with disabilities, empowering them to live independent lives, which we need to do. I have had several meetings with my party leader and Deputy Tully on this over the past number of weeks. I want to see the next Government and every political party really step up to the plate and deliver a manifesto and election commitments that are real, deliverable, which will actually make a difference for people with disabilities and which will once and for all put the rights of people with disabilities front and centre in any programme for Government.

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