Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)

I want to thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this very laudable motion on the cost of disability. We all know it costs any person who had a disability more just to survive and carry on. They have a lot of issues. For people with serious disabilities respite in Kerry is practically non-existent when it is needed. We are very short of residential care places for children with intellectual and physical disabilities. I can highlight one case where a person in her thirties in serious need of residential care was offered a place in County Meath all the way from County Kerry. That is absolutely ridiculous. We are still short of respite beds on the southern side of the constituency. I had this all summer. Carers, daughters and sons caring for their elderly people who have disabilities just wanted to go on holiday for a week but there was no place for respite in any of the district or community hospitals. They were all full. People with a disability are entitled to four weeks of respite in a community hospital setting but that does not materialise. In Kerry it does not happen. We have a wonderful place, Mary of the Angels, in Beaufort, which was donated by the Doyle family many years ago. That has been closed by stealth because as people died, the beds were never filled again. I cannot understand this. At the same time, we are offered only places in Tipperary or Meath for someone who needs new residential care. It appears that they will not be left into Mary of the Angels. I cannot understand that. I ask the Minister of State to look at that. There are 40 or 50 acres of grounds that could be expanded. There could be all kinds of different respite there. It should be developed as a model for the rest of the country because the room is there to do it and the basics are there already. There are swimming pools and all the different things that are needed for people with disabilities.

One thing that hurts me very much is when I see elderly people minding their elderly disabled children. I am talking about people in their late 70s and early 80s. The question they have for me is: who is going to see after our Johnny, Mary or Julia when we are gone, because they are on their last legs? I feel for those people because they are doing their best all their lives. We should be giving them better assurance and reassurance that their children will be seen after. These children may be in their late 40s or early 50s. It is a fierce worry to their parents.

Many people are allocated home help but while they are allocated the time, nobody turns up because we are told that we do not have the home helps. There are many instances where one home help goes to the home and they cannot operate the hoist on their own. That is happening too often and it means people have to stay in bed for an extra day. That is not right because they seize up. We would all seize up if we stayed sitting down long enough. We would not move after a few days. It is important to those people that they have a routine and that they are looked after, taken out of bed and put sitting in a chair or taken to the bathroom or wherever they want to go but too often it is not happening for these people in Kerry. I am asking the Minister of State to listen to us because those people with disabilities have a role to play. They are part of us and we want to ensure that they are properly looked after.

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