John Dolan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome back. I welcome the contributions of fellow Senators, who are making very important points that need to be made. As the saying goes, we are where we are. This Bill represents the prudent and logical approach. It is regrettable at another level that it was not possible to proceed more quickly.

I wish to make a few points on regulation in general. It was a long time coming but it is now happening. The reason for it is to benefit people with a disability. This must be considered in the context of our State's policy approach, which envisages people with disabilities having maximum independence and ultimately the ability to participate in ordinary life in ordinary ways and to have relationships, an education, ease of movement, employment, etc. It is important to keep this in mind.

Since there have been so many lapses in or a lack of regulation in a range of areas, we often run into regulation or push it on. We must ensure our regulation is the right regulation. In a couple of years, when we have a chance to review how the regulation operates, we must bear this point in mind.

There are lessons learned already among organisations and service providers, including HIQA, the Department and the HSE. In all this, it will be most important to ascertain how we hear better and more clearly the voice of people with disabilities. We have the UN convention. Minister of State Deputy Finian McGrath assured us on this in the House a couple of weeks ago. It was mentioned again yesterday by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Simon Coveney. It is coming our way very soon. We might as well be clear about the fact there will be tension to be addressed in a mature way and that we will have to strike a balance between a very well-meant ethos of welfare and care, on the one hand, and liberation, choice and the autonomy of people, on the other. We will have to struggle with this. I am pretty sure we will not find the balance too easily.

It has taken a long time to get here. The Minister of State said one of the key aims of the Government was to provide services and supports for people with a disability that will empower them to live independent lives, provide them with greater independence and access to services they choose, and enhance their ability to tailor the supports required to meet their needs and plan their lives. He then stated that this was a fundamental change in the way services and supports for people with disabilities are currently provided. I take issue with that. It is true in so far as it concerns many people in residential settings but, for every one person in a residential setting, there are thousands struggling to stay with it in the community and to stay living in their neighbourhood. Genuine issues arise regarding the supports they need, including personal assistants, a decent income to live on, and home supports.We must remember that there are two worlds here. There is the world of people who have been incarcerated in institutions, in effect, and there is the world of people hanging on by their fingernails to stay living in the community.

We hear considerable talk about the revolving door when it comes to prisons, but there is another revolving door in a sense. We are fixated with getting the 2,725 people down to zero. As Senator Swanick has already said, at the rate targeted for the next five years it will take a further decade, 15 years in total, before that is concluded and we have not come close to meeting those targets in recent years.

However, I was involved in a case about two years ago, since HIQA was established. A young man in his 50s became disabled as a result of a road traffic accident. He is a married man with three children. They are a fine family that really wanted to stay together. Someone from the HSE placed a fair deal application form before that man. This means that there are two different people sitting in offices in the HSE, one working on getting people out of congregated settings and the other suggesting the fair deal as the best deal on offer.

We are only talking about gross figures when we are trying to get the numbers down. We also need to think about the people going into institutions of one kind or another, often nursing homes. That is happening because of a serious, unprecedented and rigorous chipping away at supports that keep people living in the community, including the PA hours cut and the home care packages cut.

I support the Bill. I hope the Minister of State will come back to address some of the wider issues raised today relating to independent living for people with disabilities. In particular, we need to address the issue of younger people going into other forms of institutions.