Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Leslie is a 16 year old girl with Down's syndrome who lives in my constituency. She is cared for by her mother in the local authority house in which they live. Her mother is a lone parent in receipt of carer's allowance. Leslie attends special education at St. John of God's, Islandbridge, the work of which most if not all Members of this House hold in high regard. Although 16 years old, Leslie has never had access to speech therapy except for a period of six weeks in a group context. Leslie badly needs appropriate access to speech and language therapy. Her mother came to see me at her wit's end in October 2006. Leslie could not get access to the limited speech therapy available at St. John of God's. As she is in special education, she does not have access to speech therapy where it is provided by community services.

Since October 2006 my office and I have been pressing for at least some effort to be made to meet Leslie's pressing needs. We have been round and round the mulberry bush but have been ignored or referred from Billy to Jack. Meaningless replies or no replies at all are the norm. For example, in reply to a parliamentary question I put on 12 February 2008 I was told by the Minister for Health and Children, along with the usual macro statistics:

The Deputy's question relates to the management and delivery of health and personal social services, which are the responsibility of the Health Service Executive under the Health Act 2004. Accordingly, my Department has requested the parliamentary affairs division of the executive to arrange to have these matters investigated and to have a reply issued directly to the Deputy.

That was on 12 February and today is 10 April, but I have not even received a reply from the HSE. I can see no reason for optimism given the tenor of my exchanges directly with the HSE. Usually replies are evasive and deliberately avoid the actual problem. In direct correspondence painfully extracted over a long period, I was told that St. John of God's has a speech and language therapy post attached to its service, so Leslie should access speech and language therapy there. The reply ignored the basic fact that the speech and language therapy post is either vacant for long periods or access to it is denied to Leslie because of pressure to give priority to the under five year olds. I have pointed this out in writing to the HSE but it simply refused to reply. This is typical of the evasive, insensitive, time wasting bureaucratic speak of the public agencies on which Leslie is entitled to rely. The local authority responded in a similarly insensitive manner to an earnest request to facilitate a local housing transfer on foot of anti-social behaviour. South Dublin County Council refused to transfer Leslie and her mother to a vacant house in a safe cul de sac. If Leslie's mother works for more than 15 hours, she will lose part or all of her carer's allowance.

The reality of Celtic tiger Ireland is that Leslie and her mother are besieged by anti-social behaviour in their home, her mother is unable to go out to work because she would lose her benefit and Leslie is unable to access the intensive speech and language therapy that she so desperately needs. Worst of all is that it is not possible to find someone who gives a damn. The Minister will pass the buck to the HSE, the HSE will go to the word processor that churns out a routine reply for this kind of case and the county council refuses a housing transfer by taking shelter behind the opinion of a medical officer who is accountable to no one.

What medical qualifications does one need not to recognise that a young woman of 16 with Down's syndrome may need a safer environment? What kind of manpower planning has left Islandbridge without speech therapists for long periods and inadequate access at the best of times? I ask the Minister to take responsibility for the vindication of the rights of this child. She is entitled to have access to the intensive speech therapy she has been denied until now. It is shameful this should be the case. In Celtic tiger Ireland, unless a parent can afford private access, a child with an intellectual disability continues to suffer.

Seán Haughey (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will be taking this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Mary Harney. I am pleased to take this opportunity to address the important issues raised by the Deputy.

I wish to emphasise the Government's commitment to providing a high quality service to all people with a disability. This commitment is illustrated by the substantial investment we have been making in disability services in recent years. The national disability strategy, launched in September 2004, reinforces equal participation in society of people with disabilities and provides for a framework of new supports for people with disabilities. This programme, together with the enhancement of other key support services, is a key factor in building the additional capacity required to ensure that services best meet identified needs.

The strategy builds on a strong equality framework, which is reflected in several pieces of equality legislation. It puts the policy of mainstreaming of public services for people with disabilities on a clear legal footing. The main elements of the strategy were the Disability Act 2005; the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004; the sectoral plans published in 2006 by six Departments; the Citizens Information Act 2007; and the multi-annual investment programme for disability support services for the period 2006-09. In launching the national disability strategy, the Taoiseach also announced the Government's commitment to a multi-annual investment package for disability-specific services over a five-year period. To the end of 2007, €420 million has been allocated to services for people with disabilities since the launch of the strategy in 2004.

As the Deputy is aware, an additional €50 million was allocated by my colleague, the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Cowen, for the provision of improved and additional disability services in the budget for 2008. The HSE proposes to allocate this €50 million as follows. With regard to services for persons with intellectual disability and those with autism, 200 additional residential places will be provided in 2008, bringing the total number of places to 8,462 by the end of 2008; 467 additional day care places will be provided in 2008, bringing the total number of places to 25,196 by the end of 2008; and 53 additional respite places will be provided, which will bring the total number of places to 4,533 by the end of 2008. With regard to services for persons with physical or sensory disabilities, 80 additional residential places will be provided in 2008, bringing the total number of places to 914 by the end of 2008; and 200,000 additional hours of personal assistance-home support hours will be provided, which will bring the total number of hours to 3,200,000 by the end of 2008. With regard to the Disability Act, 140 multidisciplinary team posts are being provided to disability services to provide assessment and ongoing intervention services to children with a disability and in particular with reference to the implementation of the Disability Act for children under five years of age. By the end of the current multi-annual investment package in 2009, it is expected that 1,235 new residential places, 398 new respite places and 467 new day care places will have been commissioned for intellectual disability services, in addition to 380 new residential places and 1,150,000 extra personal assistance-home support hours for people with physical and sensory disabilities.

The Department of Health and Children has made inquiries with the HSE in the case named by the Deputy Rabbitte. The HSE has informed the Department of Health and Children that the St. John of God Menni Services, Islandbridge, has two whole-time equivalent speech and language therapy posts. One therapist has been employed by the organisation since September 2007 and the second therapist is in post since 2008. The HSE further states that since 2004 the St. John of God Menni Services at Islandbridge has experienced recruitment and retention problems with the speech and language therapist posts. Currently, there are 40 children aged 0-5 years and 40 children aged 5-18 years in receipt of this service from the order.

The Department of Health and Children understands from the HSE that the person mentioned by the Deputy was referred to the St. John of God's speech and language service in October 2007 and is on its waiting list for assessment. I will endeavour to ensure that the Department and the HSE keep Deputy Rabbitte informed of developments in this case.