Cian O'Callaghan demands ring-fenced funding for disability care

Paula, firstly I want to welcome the Northside Homecare Workers who are in the public gallery today. They do incredible work in the local community looking after sick and elderly people and they must be paid a decent and a fair wage. Taoiseach, Parents and Carers from Before We Die visited the Dáil recently to highlight the housing needs of adults with intellectual disabilities. The name of their campaign group sums up the grim reality of what they are fighting for. They are loving parents who want to be sure that their daughters and sons will be cared for after they are gone. This shouldn't be too much to ask for in a country where the government has billions at its disposal. They need more than sympathetic words. They need action to be taken, funding ring-fenced and plans put in place. Taoiseach, these are the words of a parent who contacted Newstalk recently. We are an elderly couple both struggling significantly with health issues. We have been told by a very good day service that there are simply no places. We will sadly die sooner rather than later because we get zero respite and never get a chance to recoup our energy. We have been told our son could be put anywhere in the country. Taoiseach, this parent is not alone. Parents have no idea of what will happen to their son or daughter after they die. They have no plan because there are no options. No gradual transition. No certainty in where they will be housed. Nobody left to advocate for their son or daughter's wellbeing. Taoiseach, only after parents die, when there is an emergency situation, will the state finally step in. A vulnerable person is then put up for tender to private contractors. What sort of a care system is this? What sort of a country treats its citizens like this? Taoiseach, an bhfuil aonrad a dhéanamh agat chan seo seo chroo. What are you going to do to fix this? Taoiseach, when I raised this with the Taoiseach in February, he admitted that there had not been enough progress. Not enough progress is a monumental understatement. The Disability Capacity Review in 2021 identified the need for an additional 3,900 residential places just to catch up with pre-recession levels. Four years later, we still have thousands of families where elderly parents are working as full-time carers in their 70s, 80s and even their 90s. Four years of record budgets and little to show for it. Taoiseach, when a parent dies, an adulthood in intellectual disability is left stranded. They will lose their mum or dad, their carer, their advocate, their home and their community all at the same time. This is incredibly traumatic and distressing. This is cruel. There needs to be ring-fenced funding in next year's budget to build enough new residential places for adults with intellectual disability. Taoiseach, will you commit to doing this? That is unacceptable to be that length over your time. First of all, I want to thank the Deputy for raising what is a very important issue. I had met with the Before We Die campaign over a month ago in Cork and listened intensely to what they had to say about their own personal situations. Their personal situations could be amplified with many more. I think it is estimated that there are 1,389 active applications for residential services, with 281 assessed as priority one. We are investing. There are investment plans in the current budget, an extra 20 per cent to create additional places and new residential developments and so forth. I have put it on the agenda of the next Cabinet Subcommittee on Disability because it involves more than just allocation of funding. We will have to allocate funding. I think it is unacceptable how this has evolved. I think the focus is on emergency solutions all of the time. There are many elderly parents who are very distressed and anxious, understandably so, in terms of what is going to happen to their loved ones if they pass from this life. There needs to be proper coordination between Section 39 providers and local authorities, the State, the Government, the Department of Disability and Health. I know Minister Eimear Higgins met with the group last week, and Norma Foley also met with the group. But what is happening at the moment is that there is a siloed approach to this issue, in terms of understanding the overall housing needs of people and adults with intellectual disability. It is not just about what we might traditionally call the residential places. There must be a much more holistic approach. In some instances now, people have been sent to local authorities to apply for housing in the ordinary way. That is not good enough. In my view, any application from someone with an intellectual disability for housing, and there is a continuum, some will need some levels of support, some will need greater levels of support. It cannot be a siloed approach saying it is a local authority problem. It is not our challenge. It has to be one where the care aspects are integrated with the housing solution. That is where I want to take this. It is going to take a bit of reorganisation in terms of how government operates and how local government and in terms of the Section 39 providers and everybody who is involved here. In my view, the priority has to be on those waiting. To a certain extent, over the last number of years, there has been huge investment in de-congregation as well, which has taken up a lot of resources. We do need to work through a prioritisation of those in need. In my view, those most in need are those who are without housing and are fairly ticketing. I welcome Taoiseach that you recognise that this needs to be addressed. Losing your mum or your dad and your carer and your advocate and your home and your community all at the same time is incredibly traumatic. Then, potentially, to be offered a place hundreds of miles away from where you have lived all your life and everything you have ever known. That is just deeply inhumane. This cannot continue. You have to act on this. Will you commit sufficient funding, ring-fenced, to address this? I welcome the other approaches that will be taken as well, but this needs to be ring-fenced funding to actually address this. Will you commit to that? Certainly. As I said, it is an issue that I am going to deal with personally, as Taoiseach, with the Ministers Foley and Higgins, and others in terms of the Minister for Health, because it needs an integrated response here without question. Certainly, we will provide the necessary funding. Again, we have to get the structures right. In my view, there is both funding available within housing in a lot of instances, but we just pass it over to the local authority to deal with it. That is not a sustainable or proper response to say it is somebody else's problem. There have been capacity issues within Section 39 bodies as well in terms of dealing with this housing and residential issue. We do need to engage with the different authorities and the different bodies responsible and get moving on it and engage proactively with local authorities ourselves. We want particular cases and we want particular priorities dealt with now in a proactive way, as opposed to dealing with it when it becomes an emergency. The agency has to be involved in that process.