Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

I second the amendment. I welcome the Minister. I listened with interest to the words of Senator Corrigan, who is always very helpful in the area of disability.

Let us consider the issue of disability as being broader than simply the need for a personal advocacy service. I concur with Senator Buttimer to some extent that the need for a personal advocacy service will tell us how dependent people with disabilities are, although I fully accept the service is intended to ensure they can be given an even break and to level the playing field in order that they become independent.

People with disabilities are a highly differentiated population with varying ranges of abilities and disabilities and a vast range of needs. One fact that is glaring is that 90% of people with disabilities are unemployed, so they are a group which is always at high risk of poverty. This struck me strongly three or four years ago during the boom when a deaf girl came to me looking to get work. Even though there was high employment, she, among others, was very much at risk.

The experience I encounter in my constituency office is a cycle of depression, anxiety and disability resulting in a feeling of helplessness, although not necessarily in that order. The reliance on service provision is huge and this impacts on the individual user and his or her family. In an environment of budgetary cuts, people with disabilities have less capacity to recover from cuts. Life has severely stalled for them in many cases and, by definition, people with disability are excluded from mainstream participation in life - from employment, in some cases from transport, from housing and from education. I will elaborate shortly with regard to education. Progress has been made for people with disabilities, which I have noticed and acknowledge. Access to public buildings has improved, building regulations are more cognisant of people's needs, there are taxis for the disabled and even the kerbs have been improved to allow people to access footpaths. That said, places such as Mervue in Galway city still do not have the kerbs to make footpaths more easily accessible for people in wheelchairs.

Generally, the level of service progress and speed of delivery has been worse than anticipated. In the first decade of this century there was a massive debate about rights-based legislation for people with disabilities. Customer experience is not consistent throughout the country. For example, people with disabilities in Galway city cannot use all the buses. The public advocacy service was due to be delivered in 2008 but it is now due in 2011. Three years is a considerable period of time. The national disability strategy is driven by individual service user needs, and satisfaction will depend on the complexity of their needs and how those needs are met. A person with a physical disability who is incapable of independent living could need many personal assistant hours but, with current resourcing, this person is unlikely to get the hours he or she requires. His or her disability becomes more embedded as a result.

The main point that must be made is that service providers are under extraordinary levels of stress to maintain services. The Minister will be aware of this from Enable Ireland Galway and the Brothers of Charity in Galway. When budgetary cuts occur, funding must first go to paying wages. This might be of least apparent benefit to the person with a disability. It might be the personal assistant service that will be cut first, and that might have been the single element of support that most enhanced the life of the person with a disability.

I broadly welcome the public advocacy service. I have had recent experience of seeing an advocate advocating on behalf of a person who was very unhappy in her residential home in Galway. The advocate was very independent and worked for the person with disability but despite the advocate's best work, the person still remains unhappy. The main thing is that the service is available. I support that work. Will the Minister clarify what aspects of the public advocacy service will definitely be implemented in 2011? Has funding been set aside in the budget for it? Is it dependent on such funding? Will staff be appointed given the embargo on public service recruitment? I note the number of staff that are needed in various geographical regions of the country.

Very little of the national disability strategy which was announced in 2004 has been realised. What has this meant in reality? I have been speaking to the Brothers of Charity and they would say the disability strategy is dead in the water. It is still policy but it is not backed up by funding. The main thrust of the strategy was to provide resources to meet people's needs and to move to seamless service provision, be it in housing, transport or health. This costs money. The strategy is great in theory but has led to disappointment among many users.

I will elaborate in more detail on the deferral of the implementation of the Education for People with Special Educational Needs, EPSEN, Act which applies to children and young adults, and the failure to publish a costed, multi-annual plan for its implementation. I spoke to the then Minister, Deputy Mary Hanafin, and to subsequent Ministers about this. The Act still has not been fully implemented. This is a great disservice to and crime against children and young people with disabilities. Children are not getting adequate access to supports, such as the psychological supports required to provide assessments, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy. Most of the school age services provided by the Brothers of Charity are for children in mainstream schools. The striking fact is that, at present, 200 children are not getting an adequate level of service to meet their needs because the EPSEN Act has not been implemented. As a result, there is an increase in the number of applications to special needs schools. This is not Government policy but can one blame the parents for seeking appropriate education when the supports do not exist in mainstream education? I certainly do not blame them. It is the Government's fault that parents are now applying to special needs schools.

I will conclude by referring to the individual education plans, IEPs. They are not fully in place in law. There is something similar in place at present but it is not in accordance with the terms set out in the EPSEN Act. This is according to the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, this morning. Schools are using the IEP guidelines as set out by the NCSE. They are just guidelines, however, and are not on a statutory footing under the EPSEN Act. As long as this is the case, children with disabilities will continue to get a raw deal in education. I have much personal experience of this. I look forward to hearing that the Minister will address the EPSEN Act and the IEPs.