Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Members for their contributions on what is a very important topic. The Government is absolutely committed to ensuring that people with disabilities can live full lives with the same rights and access to services, education, transport, sport, culture, careers and means to live independently as all other citizens enjoy. Since being appointed the Minister of State with special responsibility for disability last month, I have made it a priority to visit services, meet people with disabilities and sit down with advocacy groups to hear their views on what is working well and what needs to be improved. There are wonderful examples of services that help to transform lives. There are also examples of services that need additional support and bolstering. There is no shortage of good ideas concerning what can and must be done. Only by tapping into the lived experience of people with disabilities will we understand what is happening on the ground, which will help us to deliver the reforms needed to improve services and deliver on our ambition.

I want to deliver change that will have a real impact, as well as helping to oversee reform in this sector. For example, we must ensure that a person using a wheelchair who uses public transport can travel seamlessly from their home to a bus stop or a train station. I have asked my officials to develop a plan to audit our public spaces to ensure people are not inhibited from travelling because of cluttered streets and an inability to cross the road safely. That will help to guide investment decisions. I want to look at expanding the role of access officers in the public sector to ensure services such as libraries are accessible and people with disabilities are not prevented from attending and enjoying concerts and festivals. I wish to create a mechanism to allow public bodies to share best practices and I want to help people with disabilities to get into employment. My Government colleagues and I are absolutely committed to ensuring that each Department and the local authority sector work together to address the various barriers that prevent people with disabilities from fully engaging in society.

A demonstration of this commitment is the fact that I as the Minister of State with special responsibility for disability sit at the Cabinet table, where I join my colleague the Minister, Deputy Norma Foley. This will ensure that the voices of disabled people will be across every Government decision. We are both committed to delivering change in tandem with colleagues across other Departments. It is important to note that the Cabinet committee on disability will be retained by this Government. A new disability unit will be established in the Department of the Taoiseach and both these actions will form the basis of a whole-of-government step change in its approach to service improvement and delivery. By putting disability at the centre of Government, we will expand and reform services to maximise people's independence and help to support disabled people. Census 2022 told us that 22% of the population or approximately 1.1 million people, have a disability. Most are supported via mainstream health and social care services. My Department funds, via the HSE, specialist, community-based disability services, which are designed for the 60,000 people with a significant intellectual disability, autism or a complex physical disability. These services include multidisciplinary therapies for children or adults, adult day services, personal assistants, home support, respite and residential services. Some €3.2 billion has been allocated for HSE disability services in budget 2025. This is up 11.5% compared to 2024 and represents an increase of €333 million, the largest ever increase in the disability services budget. While the overall budget has increased by €1.2 billion since 2020, we appreciate that much more is needed. We must invest more in services, personal assistants, home support hours and other supports to assist people to continue living independently in their own homes. Our capital spending must increase and, crucially, we must provide more therapists and access to services.

The programme for Government commits to doubling the number of college places for speech and language therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dieticians, psychologists and social workers. An additional 150 places were provided last September as a first step in this process. These professionals are highly sought after nationally and internationally, with an array of career opportunities available to them. In July 2024, the Government approved the prioritisation of funding to support the expansion of training places in priority healthcare areas, including speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy. Increasing the number of graduate therapists year-on-year will be key to meeting the demands of the disability sector and we will engage with the relevant Departments to support this work in 2025. Additionally, encouraging students to undertake placements in disability services is vital to increasing the disabilities workforce. This will expose more students to the challenging, impactful and rewarding nature of work in the disability services sector and encourage them to take up full-time positions upon graduation. The recruitment and retention of staff is a challenge across the sector overall and a significant priority for the Government continues to be filling vacancies within the 93 CDNTs. Clear progress is being made in this regard, with the workforce having increased by 17% between 2023 and 2024. This represents significant growth of an additional 372 whole-time-equivalent staff working across the CDNTs. We are building on this progress. In budget 2025, more than €2.8 million in new development measure funding was secured to provide for additional whole-time equivalents in the teams. This includes 40 health and social care professionals, 20 health and social care professional assistants and 15 clinical psychology trainee placements. 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, with €10 million in funding allocated for 2025 to deliver 2,850 assessments of needs.

Among the most important pieces of work under way is the development of the national disability strategy. The development of this strategy is at a very advanced stage, with publication expected in the coming months. The next national disability strategy will operate as a framework for the co-ordination of disability policy right across government, ensuring a whole-of-government approach to the advancement of the UNCRPD and collaboration on cross-cutting issues. Advocacy groups have been extensively involved in the development of the strategy and officials from a range of Departments and stakeholders, including disabled people's organisations, DPOs, met in my Department last week to discuss the next steps.

In working across government, including with colleagues in the Departments of An Taoiseach and Housing, Local Government and Heritage, to develop our commitments on the development of the national disability strategy, the role of local authority decision-making has emerged as a consistent theme. As my Department leads on the finalisation phase of development, it will be critical that local government is involved in the development of monitoring and implementing the actions. While acknowledging the independence of local authorities as autonomous legal entities and therefore the challenges inherent in co-ordination across jurisdictions, the national disability strategy will examine opportunities to enhance co-ordination and to showcase examples of best practice to advance the implementation of the UNCRPD at local level.

I assure Members that we will progress the action plan for disability services. We have set ambitious targets in the plan to provide for unmet need and demographic change. 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 - which has led to service expansion. I fully appreciate that more is needed and I will work with colleagues during the Estimates process to secure funding to provide the services we need.

I have listened carefully today to the contributions of Members and I will take them away for consideration. There is no monopoly on good ideas. I am fully committed to listening and taking advice from any quarter, whether it is colleagues across Leinster House, advocacy groups, DPOs, families, individuals with lived experience or experts in the field. It is only by understanding the needs of people with disabilities that we can deliver the step change in disability services as per the commitment in the programme for Government that this sector needs.

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