Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Anne Rabbitte. I thank the Senator for raising this important issue for discussion in the House. I have listened very carefully to the cases she has raised. These ultimately are the type of issues that must be raised in the national Parliament but if everything was working as plan, we would not need to have these discussions here. Clearly, from the evidence produced by the Senator, it is very necessary that these matters be raised here to highlight these issues so they can get a greater level of attention.

She will be aware that there is significant demand for respite and residential placements across all community health organisation, CHO, areas in the HSE. Challenges facing the provision of centre-based respite and residential care, for example include the necessary obligations that regulation places on providers; the difficulty in recruiting personnel and retaining them in the services and difficulties in procuring appropriate accommodation. The issue of recruitment and staffing is central to the difficulties we are having here. Funding is available but the recruitment process can be very difficult. To retain staff in those positions can also be very difficult. This is having an effect on the provision of residential services and overnight respite services.

Nevertheless, in budget 2023, the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, secured €177 million in additional funding, increasing the overall funding for disability services to an unprecedented €2.5 billion. This level of funding for disability services reinforces the programme for Government commitment to improving the lives of people with disabilities. Significant additional resources have been provided. In the past three years in particular, sustained new development funding has been secured. In 2023, €6.7 million in new development funding is being made available to further expand respite services.

Residential services make up the largest part of the specialist community-based disability services funding currently distributed by the HSE. As of March 2023, the HSE is funding a total of 8,330 existing residential placements, delivered predominately by the section 38 and section 39 organisations funded under the Health Act 2004. The Senator also referred specifically to section 39 organisations.

The HSE National Service Plan 2023 provides for the support of additional residential placements across a range of services, including 43 new placements, 23 residential packages for young people aging out of Tusla placements, 18 delayed transfers of care, with additional transitions of young people under 65 inappropriately placed in nursing homes, and further moves from congregated settings.

I support the points made by the Senator. I will speak with the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, in the course of the afternoon to emphasise the points made by her. It is very important that I do this. I am aware from speaking with the Minister of State on an ongoing basis that she is acutely aware of the issue and is, impatient about where funding is available having it translated into staffing to increase the number of places over and above the 8,330 places that are currently being funded.

I come back to the fact that not only is it a tragic situation for the 20-year-old son and the nine-year-old boy, but there is also the impact on the family. It is not one person we are talking about. There are four or five people in each case. The distress this is causing is, in another extent, equally as severe from a mental health point of view, as for the person with the particular mental disability the Senator referred to.