Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and I acknowledge her commitment to this area. She has been a fantastic ambassador and has worked really well on some really tough cases that I have personally brought forward to her. We have a different scenario down in my part of the world where we have agencies involved in respite. The Minister of State knows exactly what I am talking about. I am talking about places like CoAction, Cope and Brothers of Charity. They provide the respite services rather than the HSE directly, which complicates things. I want to address that complication today. Much as these organisations do fantastic work on the ground, the lack of respite is a huge issue. How we can deliver respite will be the big issue in future for these struggling families.

I mention one facility in particular Garrylucas in Ballinspittle. It is a wonderful part of the world with a wonderful beach and if the Minister of State is ever down there, she should go there. The facility is only open for 12 to 13 weeks of the year and the rest of the time it is closed up. This is a respite centre that people in my part of the world depend upon but it is literally only going for three months in the year. Because of the way this is set up we need to do more to encourage the agencies involved to do the works that are appropriate to make sure it can be open 50 or 52 weeks of the year. It is a wonderful part of the world and the centre does amazing work. However, we need to make sure we can maximise capacity. I will be writing to the Minister of State about this issue. I have not written to her in a while about it.We need to move on the areas where we have capacity to make sure we can maximise respite because respite is a huge issue for us.

I wish to raise another issue. I was at a meeting last Monday night in Dunmanway. There were some fantastic speakers on Down's syndrome - wonderful people. They spoke to me about their issues in this area. It became obvious in the debate, that the gap was from six weeks to maybe four and a half years of age, and then from 18 onwards. There were services that worked for them between four years of age and 18 years of age, but they had huge issues working on speech therapy and other therapies required to get them up to four years of age. When they finished schooling, they then had no outlet. They had no place to go. They had no sheltered employment. I acknowledge the work done in the Oireachtas on sheltered employment. We see wonderful work every day. It is a system we need to start talking about. There should be a mandate for local government in particular to make sure the sheltered employment opportunities I see every day in these Houses are rolled out across the entire local government sector. That should then be the catalyst to make sure the private sector gets involved as well. We need to have increased numbers of sheltered employment opportunities. These people want and need to be a part of this society. They can play a wonderful part in this society. We have seen it in these Houses. However, we need to do more to instruct local government management to work in this system. I call on the Minister of State to use her influence with that sector in particular. If we can have movement there then we can hopefully move forward and have significant movement within the private sector. Unless the public sector does it, nobody will do it.

They are my two calls to the Minister of State. First, we need to maximise what we have and in some areas at the moment that is not being maximised. Second, the sheltered employment opportunities need to be looked at. We need to put a strategic plan in place to make sure everyone is involved in that.