Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCeann Comhairle as ucht an t-am agus an deis a thabhairt dom. A change of Government often brings with it a renewed sense of optimism, an opportunity to reassess our priorities and refocus our minds on the commitments and promises that have been made both here in this Chamber as well as on the doorsteps of homes across the country. Nowhere is this more urgent than for those living with disabilities, including their families, carers and those working in the sector who, for too long, have often feel unseen and unheard by society. I am, therefore, very pleased to have the opportunity to outline key priorities that will shape the work of my Department over the next number of years, fuelled by a renewed drive and ambition to improve and enhance the services that support individuals and their families living with a disability so that they may live safe and dignified lives.

The most recent census identified that a significant proportion of the Irish population experiences disability. Public services must, therefore, be planned, delivered and maintained in a way that responds to the needs of those who use them. Delivering robust and dynamic disability services for all users in the country does not exclusively lie within my Department, but rightly requires an all-of-government response if the needs of all service users are to be properly met.

Ensuring that all Departments are not simply aware of their commitments in this space but also act upon them in a meaningful and tangible way will be a key focus of mine, as Minister, and will guide my work in the coming years. I look forward to working with my Government colleagues to ensure we achieve this.

If an all-of-government approach to the improvement of disability services is a central commitment of this Administration, then the formation of a new disability unit in the Department of An Taoiseach is crucial to ensuring we achieve an all-of-government response to service improvement and delivery. This new unit represents a step change in how the Government will respond to the disability sector in the country as a whole, ensuring there is a central focus to support co-ordination across all Departments. As Minister, I will proactively work with and support this unit in order to ensure that the Government delivers on a co-ordinated basis for those in the country with disabilities.

Enhanced service delivery across the disability sector will not be possible unless the Government ensures that there are proper resource in place to serve this ambition. Therefore, a total of €3.2 billion has been allocated for HSE disability services in budget 2025. This amounts to an 11.5% increase in funding on last year and represents an overall increase of €1.2 billion since 2020. While this is a significant increase in funding, I appreciate that there are significant pressures facing the sector. I look forward to working with key stakeholders and Members to overcome the challenges in the years ahead.

The additional funding of €333 million allocated in budget 2025 represents the largest ever increase in the disability services budget. Some €290 million has been allocated in existing-level-of-service funding, which recognises those challenges that prevail in the sector, including the increased cost of service provision, pay cost pressures and service provider sustainability. In addition, the existing-level-of-service funding will provide for the full-year cost of a new service activity and, in a departure from previous years, this funding will also include provision for service expansion in line with demographic growth. A further €39 million has been allocated for new development measures to build on the service expansion achieved in 2024.

Funding has been provided for children's services, day services, residential services, respite, personal assistance and home support hours and other supports to assist people to continue living independently in their own homes. In addition, the capital allocation for disability services will increase by €4 million to €27 million this year to support much needed infrastructure, development across respite, day services and children's services.

The HSE's national plan for 2025 sets out in more detail the specific quantities of services to be provided through this additional allocation. While I am committed to ensuring appropriate funding is available and provided to voluntary organisations to enable them to deliver quality services on an equitable basis across the country, I acknowledge that many specialist disability service providers are experiencing funding, operational and governance challenges.

The financial challenges facing the voluntary sector are highly complex and arise from both historical issues relating to funding arrangements and existing and emerging challenges including - due to the changing profile of user need - higher safety and quality standards and general demographic and inflationary pressures.

As I previously stated, the total budget for specialist disability services in 2025 is €3.24 billion. The largest share, 72%, goes to voluntary service providers. Even with significant new year-on-year funding in recent years, there is a need to better understand and ultimately address the systemic sustainability and stability challenges being experienced by disability organisations across the sector. We need to work together to understand the cost of services and, more importantly, the factors driving the costs to ensure that we can make strong data-driven cases for increased investment in the sector. This can only be achieved as a shared agenda between the Department, the HSE, and the service providers themselves. In addition, innovations in service delivery must go hand in hand with all future investment in the sector.

In that regard, the Department is progressing a programme of work with the HSE to ensure systemic learnings from the sustainability impact assessment process can be shared and, more importantly, embedded. This work can contribute to better services by optimising person-centred outcomes from existing and future resources. We are committed to working with service providers in driving these innovations.

The Department and the HSE are committed to working with key stakeholders to identify, assess and address constraints to create a more effective and sustainable disability sector. Our priority is to provide equitable access to quality services for persons with disability in line with UN Convention on Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, UNCRPD, commitments, delivery of the disability action plan, and the progressing disability services roadmap. We want to ensure that we support progressive improvements in the sector. Partnership with the sector will be a significant focus to ensure that the Department and the Government deliver on commitments in 2025.

I am all too aware, as are Members, of the challenges and strains facing the sector when it comes to the recruitment and retention of staff. In outlining my priorities today as Minister, I am certain that a key focus for the Government will be to fill vacancies within the 93 children's disability network teams, CDNTs. I can confirm that progress is being made in this regard, with the workforce increasing by 17% from 2023 to 2024. This represents a significant growth of 272 whole-time-equivalent staff working across children's disability network teams. We are looking to build on this progress.

In budget 2025, €2.841 million in new development measure funding has been secured to provide for additional whole-time-equivalent staff in CDNTs. However, demand for services continues to grow beyond our capacity and significant challenges remain. I acknowledge that. Therefore, innovation is key here and the Government and I are committed to building on the momentum that has been achieved in 2024. In this context, a dedicated disability workforce strategy will be developed in 2025 to meet growing service demands and address recruitment and retention challenges across specialist disability services.

A number of measures are also being progressed that are designed to attract to and retain staff on CDNTs. This is being guided by the progressing disability services roadmap. Furthermore, a cross-departmental steering group with a focus on examining blockages in the system will be re-established during my term of office and this grouping will also focus on initiatives to increase staffing. Officials in the Department will seek opportunities for service providers to share their insights with and to contribute to the work of this forum in order that it best reflects the needs of the sector.

I acknowledge there are enormous challenges accessing assessments of need and the process itself. In this regard, the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, and I will seek to address the unacceptable delays that children and parents face. The Government will also facilitate the continuation of the assessment of need waiting list initiative, enabling the procurement of private assessments for long-waiting families. Part of this effort to improve wait times is the allocation of €10 million in funding this year to deliver approximately 2,850 assessments of need. I am very conscious that a significant body of work needs to be done in this specific area.

The programme for Government commits to doubling the number of college places available for speech and language therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dieticians, psychologists, social workers and others within this field of work. These professionals are highly sought after both nationally and internationally, with an array of career opportunities available to them and the onus is on those of us in government to ensure that we do everything we can to encourage these talented professionals into the sector.

In July 2024, the Government approved the prioritisation of funding to support the expansion of training places in priority healthcare areas. These areas include speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy. As Minister, I will be keenly focused on encouraging and supporting students onto these courses, helping to incentivise careers in disability services right across the sector.

A key part of this effort will be to increase the number of graduate therapists each year, which is central to meeting the needs of the disability sector as a whole. In the spirit of Government co-operation, my focus will be to ensure that we engage with the relevant Departments to support this important work throughout 2025. Additionally, encouraging students to undertake placements in the disability services is vital to increasing the overall workforce of the disability sector. This will expose more and more students to challenging, yet equally rewarding career opportunities across the sector. It will encourage them to take up careers that really matter and which have enormous positive impacts on individuals and families living with disabilities.

I am pleased to say that significant work was undertaken during 2024 to increase these student placements in CDNTs. This work resulted in increasing practice education capacity by 50%. My focus now is to ensure that we not just continue this success but further build on this momentum to ensure that we can meet our commitments this year. The more opportunities we take to showcase to students the invaluable nature of this work, then the greater benefit it is in the long term.

The voluntary sector plays an important role in the delivery of disability services across the country. I know this and I know that the Deputies know this also. Workers in the voluntary sector need to feel that the Government supports them and that it is doing what it can to help to improve pay and conditions for those who work tirelessly to support people with disabilities. The programme for Government commits to working with the voluntary sector through industrial relations mechanisms, to progress pay issues that affect the delivery of disability services and the long-term viability of organisations in the sector.

I welcomed the agreement reached at the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, in October 2023 that resulted in an 8% increase in pay for staff in disability organisations, funded under section 39 of the Health Act 2007. However, I recognise that there is need for additional investment for workers' pay in this sector. This will help support these organisations to recruit and retain staff to deliver services on behalf of the State. In line with the October 2023 agreement, and following approval of the public sector pay deal, relevant Departments, agencies, employer representatives and unions reconvened for talks at the WRC last year. Through this process, the Department made it clear to unions that funds are available for this purpose. The talks at the WRC were paused during the general election and the subsequent talks for the formation of Government. Recognising the urgency of the situation, I brought a memo to Government last week outlining my intention to seek a return to the WRC. I am confident that this is the mechanism through which all parties can meet around the table. I look forward to the process recommencing next week.

We all know that robust policy forms the bedrock for all that Government seeks to achieve. In this spirit, I am pleased to say that the national disability strategy is at an advanced stage and that publication is expected in a matter of months. At the heart of this strategy will be a focus on cross-government collaboration, to ensure that Ireland advances the rights of those living with disabilities in line with our commitments under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD. This spirit of co-operation and collaboration extends to our local authorities, which have an important role to play in helping to improve the lives of those living with disabilities. Through my engagements with members of Disability Federation Ireland, DFI, I know that some local authorities are modelling best practice for others to follow. This includes initiatives such as that in my home county, where a beach wheelchair service provides fully adaptable wheelchairs to locals and visitors alike. This affords users the same opportunities to access the beaches in the immediate vicinity. This practice should be replicated across the country. Through the ongoing development of the national disability strategy, the vital role that local authorities play in the disability sector has emerged as a consistent theme from all those I meet in the sector. As my Department leads the finalisation of this strategy over the coming months, I know that local authorities must be involved in the development, monitoring and implementation of actions. My officials have met key counterparts in the City and County Management Association to advance these objectives and to ensure that the strategy has sufficiently local focus. At the end of the day, we must focus on the local, because this is where people live and choose to work. While acknowledging the independence of local authorities as autonomous legal entities and the challenges inherent in co-ordination across jurisdictions, the national disability strategy will look at opportunities to enhance co-ordination and to showcase examples of best practice to advance the implementation of the UNCRPD at local level. The publication and funding of this new national disability strategy is critically important to advancing the rights and improving the lives of people with disabilities and this will be an clear and early priority for me as Minister. There is such untapped potential and talent for people with disabilities in terms of employment. I note that advocacy groups have pointed out that despite the obligation to make employment more inclusive for disabled people under Article 27 of the UNCRPD, in census 2022 only 49% of disabled people were employed, compared to 71% of people without a disability and of working age. The disability employment gap is greatest for those disabled to a great extent, which is 42%, versus those disabled to some extent, which is 12%. This is why employment will be a key consideration under the national disability strategy, an area in which I want to take ambitious action to ensure that disabled people are empowered to pursue meaningful careers.

I will also be working closely with the Minister of State for Disability, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, on delivering on the ambition of the Action Plan for Disability Services 2024-2026. We have set ambitious targets in the plan to provide for unmet need and demographic change, and I believe this ambition is important to generate commitment to the vision we have for disability services in Ireland.

To date, the Government has supported the plan with approximately €113 million in new development funding - €74 million in 2024 and €39 million in 2025, with some funding from the existing level of service, ELS, allocation also funding service expansion through provision for demographic change. However, we know that there are significant barriers to delivery, and we are keen to work with our partners to add the extra capacity which is needed and to ensure that the enabling work is in place to help the plan to succeed. This involves addressing workforce and sustainability issues, improving data collection, seeking innovative policy and service delivery solutions and finding ways to enhance the delivery of residential services so that we grow this area in a more sustainable fashion.

Respite plays a crucial role in the overall disability sector, providing much needed support to families and carers. While I know that there is high demand for respite services, we also have to look at alternative respite including in-home respite; after-school and day respite programmes; host families and summer programmes; using existing overnight respite capacity to the maximum extent and providing additional overnight respite capacity. This is ambitious but we are fortunate that a comprehensive report on the cost of disability has been completed by INDECON on behalf of the Government. Regarding respite and alternative respite, this is the view of the disability organisations I have met. They agree that we need to think outside the box regarding respite and give particular attention to the notion of alternative respite, as I have outlined. Commissioned by the Department of Social Protection and published in 2021, the report found that there is no one cost of disability, but rather a spectrum of costs varying across a number of dimensions, including age, severity of disability and household type. One advocate explained very simply to me that if you are mobile, you are warmer in your house but if you are sitting in one spot all day, you need more heat and you have higher heating bills.

This should not be as big an issue in the newly designed near-zero energy homes. We must, however, think of and prioritise people with disabilities when it comes to the State's retrofitting programme, which is funded by carbon taxes.

At EU level there are a number of positive initiatives in development, including the European disability card. In one way, this will function as a European parking card, which will be very helpful for Irish people with disabilities who wish to park in disabled access spaces abroad and for tourists with disabilities who come to visit Ireland.

I am very proud that Ireland will hold the Presidency of the Council of the EU between July and December of 2026. Planning is ongoing with the disability division to identify areas of focus for the Presidency in the specific context of disability, aligning with Ireland's domestic priorities and the priorities contained in the EU strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities from 2021 to 2030.

It is clear a renewed ambition lies at the heart of the Government's plan and approach to the disability sector. From the setting up of a new and dedicated unit in the Department of An Taoiseach to enhancements to disability service provision, I am pleased to say that people with disabilities are front and centre of our agenda and must remain so for the duration of the Government. My priority as Minister is to ensure the Government works together in a collaborative way so the needs of users, their families and their carers are properly met and sustained. Collaboration and co-operation will be the hallmark of how the Government approaches the disability sector. I truly look forward to working with everyone, including Members, to achieve a step change for people with disabilities, their families, their carers and their support workers.

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