Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome to the House this evening. First, I thank Senator Clonan for bringing this Bill to the House. Every opportunity we get to speak about disability and disability rights in this House is positive and important.

Given the week that is in it, I am very glad we have this opportunity, because it is the final week, and we are speaking about our budget priorities, what changes we want and what type of attitude we want in budget 2024. We regularly call on the Joint Committee on Disability Matters. Senator Clonan and I are good colleagues on that committee. We ask each Department to look at its policies through a disability lens and a human rights lens and to look at a person's needs in the entire context as opposed to singling out health needs or employment needs. We regularly see that if a person does not fit into a box, he or she is considered to be outside the box.The Minister of State knows this because she has spoken to hundreds and thousands of people all across the country who have come to her because she has been a great spokesperson for disability and Minister of State with responsibility for disability. It is one of the most heartbreaking issues when you look at a family and you feel useless. You feel that all you can do is ask or shout for them, and you are pushing against a door that often feels locked. It is so important to continue advocating for those families. We are standing here and we know that children and adults deserve, and should have the right, to access the therapies.

I am going to take this opportunity to speak on what is stopping the roll-out of these services. Where are we? I think about County Louth in particular in this. I had a recent Commencement matter on the CDNTs. We have a 50% vacancy rate in north Louth and a 30% vacancy rate in south Louth. That is a colossal vacancy rate. You are not going to field half a football team; you will not win the match with that and you will not deliver a service to the people who need it with half a team. That has been one of the greatest challenges of the Minister of State's tenure. I want to recall when she came before the Joint Committee on Disability Matters a year ago on 2 June 2022. We were pushing for an update on the PDS road map and how that would support families. At that meeting the Minister of State suggested various ways that we could bring down those waiting lists. She suggested that we would use private operators and that we would look, for example, at the local Down's syndrome organisations that would relieve the pressure on CDNTs. I know that the Minister of State is working to relieve those waiting lists and get the services in place. As a mammy, as a cousin of someone with disabilities, as a sister of someone with a disability and as a friend of someone with disabilities, this is what we want.

It can be enshrined in law but there is no guarantee, and that is the cruelty of Senator Clonan's Bill. If we enshrine it in law, there is still no guarantee. We have assessments of need, AONs, enshrined in law and we still have no guarantee, and that is the cruelty, discrimination and deplorable situation within our system, and we have to look at why we have that. We do not have the staff. Then we look back down and question why we do not have the staff and ask what is wrong with the system. Why do people not want to work in a system that is an incredibly rewarding place to work in if it is fully staffed? You would be working with the best of people in the best of causes. With a full team, I am sure you would get incredible job satisfaction.

Unfortunately there has been a lack of looking at disability services in the context of what is needed to make sure there is career progression. What is the HSE doing to make sure we have career progression and to keep people in disability services? What is it doing to give them longevity in their careers? Where is the higher education in all of this? I would like to hear from the Minister of State on what asks she has been putting to the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, on what courses we are opening up to make sure we have the critical skills. We have no critical skills or trainees. We have shortages and we have no staff. I thank Senator Clonan and his son Eoghan for their advocacy and presence this evening, and for raising this issue, because it is really important.