Danny Healy-Rae: Urgent plea on daycare and respite services
Danny Healy-Rae spoke in a parliamentary debate about services for people with disabilities, focusing on daycare closures, shortages of respite places and disrupted therapies due to the coronavirus. He called for funding for home carers, more respite and restored early intervention, warning parents are under 'savage pressure'.
Daycare closures and capacity in Kerry
He said daycare centres in Kerry were closed because of the coronavirus and many that remain open are operating at only about 30% capacity. That reduced provision is leaving children with disabilities without regular day supports.
Pressure on parents and home carers
He described parents, siblings and other home carers as providing 24-7 care and under severe strain, noting many carers are over 70 and some approaching 80 and worry about who will care for their child when they pass on. He repeatedly warned that families are under "savage pressure".
Loss of therapies and early intervention
He said the pandemic has disrupted access to physiotherapy, language therapy and speech therapy, and that early intervention for children with disabilities is not being processed through primary care. The disruption has deprived children of essential therapeutic supports.
Shortage of respite places and funding concerns
He warned there is a shortage of respite places and an overall shortfall in services for these children. He argued parents must be funded to provide and pay for services themselves if daycare cannot meet needs and called for recognition and support for home carers.
Debate acknowledgement
He opened by thanking Sinn Fein for securing the debate and framed the remarks as an appeal to elected representatives to act for young and old people with physical and mental disabilities.
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Thank you very much, Cathaoirleach, and I want to thank Sinn Fein for this very important debate here this evening, and I suppose that if we are elected representatives, if we are to be relevant at all, we must ensure to do everything possible for people, whether young and old, with physical and mental disabilities. And in Kerry at the present time, and it's likewise around the country, but we know about our own county, daycare centres that were closed because of the coronavirus, many of them are only open 30% if we could be judged of that, and that's not good enough. No, because the parents of these children or whatever, they're under savage pressure, the home carers, whether they're brothers and sisters, whether they're fathers and mothers, and I have met them going back, so many different people, and they're great people for seeing after their children, but they're under pressure when they go over 70 years of age, and I know some of them that are moving on to 80, and their worry is what will happen their child when they pass on themselves, or who's going to see after them, because we're short of respite places, we're short of respite places, we're short of places for these children, and when the parents are getting old, they don't know what's going to become of their child. The coronavirus has disrupted so many families. These very special children, they need, you know, physiotherapy, they need language therapy, and they need speech therapy, and they've lost all that, and on top of that, their parents are at home, minding them 24-7, and they can't give any time to their, um, to their other children, and, and, and, and, and it's very sad. Um, we're in trouble with primary care ministers, where they're not being processed, and early intervention for children, uh, with, with disabilities, and home, home carers, they're totally not being seen after at all, and we must recognise them, and if these children are getting, uh, getting, uh, daycare, getting to daycare centres, their parents, their parents must be funded to provide and pay for, uh, the services themselves.
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