Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)
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Question 176: To ask the Minister for Health the number persons who qualify for personal assistant services; the amount of persons waiting for this service; when the last person qualified; the criteria on which assistants are made available, and the way he intends to clear the backlog [23423/12]

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Question 210: To ask the Minister for Health if his attention has been drawn to the serious concerns which those who rely on personal assistance services in relation to a rumoured 3.7% cut in the service being passed on by the Health Service Executive to the agencies and service providers who provide these essential services in view of the fact that cuts to these services will gravely affect the personal, employment and educational potential of people with serious disabilities [23615/12]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 176 and 210 together.

The Health Service Executive National Service Plan for 2012 sets out a reduction of 3.7% in funding to disability services. However the Service Plan states that at least 2% of this should not impact on services and needs to be generated from other savings and increased efficiencies. The HSE aims to minimize the impact of the 3.7% cut on service users and their families as much as possible. In this context and as part of the ongoing collaborative work of the National Consultative Forum on Disability, a number of representative organisations and some of their membership have already met to begin a process with the HSE to identify and agree a framework for addressing efficiencies, with minimal impact on front-line services. The HSE will endeavour to ensure that residential, day, respite and personal assistant services are protected where possible from reductions in front-line services.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) provides a range of assisted living services, including Personal Assistant service to support individuals to maximise their capacity to live full and independent lives. In 2011, a total of 1.68 million personal assistant / home support hours were provided to 11,571 persons with physical and/or sensory disability. With regard to personal assistant / home support hours, service efficiencies will be achieved through a process of negotiation with service providers around the unit cost of providing the service, rather than reducing the number of PA hours.

As the Deputies questions relate to service matters I have arranged for that part of each question to be referred to the Health Service Executive for direct reply to the Deputy.