John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 205 and 206 together.

As the Deputy will be aware, the Health Act 2007 makes provision for the introduction inter alia of a mandatory scheme of registration and inspection of residential settings for people with disabilities and envisages a role for the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) in this regard. In 2009, the cost of introducing such a scheme was estimated to be in the region of €7 million to €9 million.

National Quality Standards: Residential Settings for People with Disabilities have been published by HIQA and are under consideration by the Minister for Health and Children. These standards will provide a national framework for quality, safe services for adults with disabilities in residential settings. Given current fiscal constraints a move to full regulation and inspection of this sector presents significant challenges. In this context, the Department, the HSE and HIQA agreed that progressive implementation of the standards should commence on an administrative basis and become the benchmark against which the HSE assesses both its own directly operated facilities and other facilities that it funds.

Residential care services for older people have been subject to mandatory registration and inspection by HIQA since 1 July 2009. In 2010 the Department of Health and Children engaged in useful preliminary discussions with HIQA in relation to the possible extension of this model of registration and inspection to designated centres for people with disabilities and the resource implications of same. Given the complex nature of residential service provision for people with disabilities - ranging from congregated settings to dispersed housing in the community - further consideration is being given by my Department to the most appropriate models of registration and inspection and this work is ongoing.

With regard to these and all other HSE funded disability services, currently service providers are required, as part of their service level arrangements, to have systems in place to assess quality and standards and to specify the actions being taken to maintain and monitor quality and service standards. Examples of such monitoring actions could include audit tools appropriate to the service, service user evaluations and satisfaction surveys, and carer and service evaluations.