Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Statements on disabilities can focus on the negative experiences and the barriers faced by disabled people in their daily reality. I commend the many disabled people who are role models and ambassadors in our country. I pay particular tribute to our athletes who took part in the Paralympic Games last summer and the athletes who took part in the Special Olympics Winter Games last month. We have many other disabled artists, musicians and so forth, who are great ambassadors for our country.

Unfortunately, when it comes to employment, Ireland has a dismal record. The employment rate for disabled people ranks the lowest in the EU. Our employment rate among disabled people is 32.6%, which is almost 20% below the EU average. The employment gap is wider in Ireland than it is in any other European country. It is wider again for women, which is a shock. It needs to be addressed.

I was recently speaking to a disabled person who is visually impaired. He is an executive officer employed by the civil service. He was telling me that he has very little work to do because he is not provided with the accommodations he needs to do the work. It is terrible to be left sitting in a job that you are employed to do with practically nothing to do. He cannot seek promotion because his record of work is not being seen. I know there is a target, which is increasing this year, for employment within the public sector but needs to be meaningful and we need to ensure that the accommodations workers require are provided so that they can do the job that they are employed to do and feel included within the system. We need to look more at the private sector and encourage employers to employ people with disabilities and to make them aware of all the accommodations that exist. Otherwise, we will not live up to the UNCRPD.

On housing, we know we have a housing crisis in this country, but there is a housing crisis within that for disabled people, because inevitably they are the people who are on a housing waiting list the longest. This may include a person with a physical disability waiting on an accessible house or a person who is still in a congregated setting or a person with an intellectual disability living with aged parents. Putting people into nursing homes because, for example, they have an acquired brain injury and there is no suitable housing for them, is still the practice, which is disgraceful.

All many parents who are getting older worry about is what is going to happen to their son or daughter when they leave this world. Generally what happens is that their son or daughter is put into an emergency residential setting with no planning in place. It could be miles from their community or from anyone they know. They are trying to deal with the grief of losing a parent at the same time as settling in to a new home. There needs to be a much better plan for all disabled people, including intellectually disabled people, to ensure that they have a home suitable to their needs in their communities and the necessary supports to live independent lives.

The Minister of State mentioned CDNTs in her opening contribution and the effort to increase the numbers employed within teams. From engaging with parents, it seems they are just not working. I have not come across a parent who said that they are getting satisfactory support from their CDNT. Many parents tell me that if their child aged out of the early intervention teams in 2019, they have not received any therapy since then. Children who were too young to be part of those early intervention teams have had no therapy whatsoever. It is affecting their ability to progress and their ability to learn in school. I have had several meeting with school authorities in recent times. They say that, whatever little support they used to get some years ago from the child development teams, which was very welcome, they are getting absolutely no support at all now. We are creating a large cohort of children who will become dependent adults if they do not get support.

When Deputy Naughton was Minister of State with responsibility for special education and inclusion, a school inclusion model was piloted in the CHO area 7, which was very successful. The NCSE has extended that into the Limerick area. We need to consider extending that nationwide because I do not know whether we will ever achieve the recruitment required to get the CDNTs to work. If we could get therapy into the schools to provide support to children, teachers and SNAs, that would be very beneficial.