Richard Boyd Barrett: Who Will Care When Parents Can't?

Minister, many of the organisations that deal with disability, those in the very vulnerable sectors of our society, are voluntary organisations. In and of itself, in my opinion, a problem, but setting that aside, the question of funding, and proper funding for those organisations to be able to look after the most vulnerable in our society. We had the Before We Die campaign in here yesterday, highlighting the lack of funding to deal with the issue of the need for proper housing and residential care for older children with intellectual disabilities when their parents die or get sick, and so on, as an example of the need for extra funding for these organisations to do their job properly. Minister. Thank you very much, Deputy. The government acknowledges the essential role of voluntary organisations and the essential role they have in delivering a range of disability services right across the country. The department has provided substantial funding and substantial additional funding to the HSE specialist disability services since the transfer of functions back in 2023. This year's budget, €3.9 billion is provided for. Budget 2025 amounted to €3.2 billion, so there was an increase, quite a substantial increase of almost 20% in that one year alone. These substantial additional investments demonstrate the government's commitment to supporting disability services, along with the provision of significant year-on-year supplementary estimates. Through the annual budgetary process, the department has helped the disability sector to meet the increased cost associated with existing service provision, while also incrementally expanding service provision to meet demand. Every year, the estimates process allows the HSE to request funding for the full cost of service provision, including cost increases experienced during that year. This year's budget, the department provided €3.9 billion for HSE specialist disability services. As I said, that was a substantial increase, €628 million, or almost 20% above 2025. That's the largest ever increase in funding for disability services, and it also follows on significant year-on-year funding increases in recent years. In fact, there's been an overall increase of €1.85 billion, or 91% since 2020. That additional funding sought for this year includes a significant uplift for existing level of service provision, that's €478 million, and that's to address sectoral funding pressures such as the increased cost of service provision, pay cost pressures, capacity limitations and service provider sustainability. In addition to that €478 million for that uplift of existing level of provision, there's also €150 million to fund service expansion in residential and respite services, in day services, in home support, in personal assistance and in children's services. The department's also providing €43 million in disability capital funding for this year, and that's a significant increase, €16 million on last year. I think, Minister, to be honest, bandying around figures will mean very little to those who are concerned about their loved ones being let down. The Before We Die campaign's characterisation of the situation facing parents with children with intellectual disabilities was pretty grim, and a lot of it revolves around the lack of plan and related funding for voluntary organisations. The description was fairly stark. They talked about a systemic failure in the state's provision of housing and care for adults with intellectual disabilities, talked about over-reliance on emergency placements, where parents were living in a perpetual state of near or actual crisis, that the system was broken, families are terrified that their loved ones will be placed in cost-effective, for-profit settings, our sons and daughters have a right to be heard, to be planned for and to be housed. Centrally, they were saying that meant funded plans for children with intellectual disabilities when their parents pass on, proper funding for Section 38 and 39 organisations and ring-fenced funding for these organisations. How do you respond to campaigns like the Before We Die campaign and the concerns they are raising? I respond by meeting them and listening to them. I have met with the Before We Die campaign twice now, and Minister Foley has as well. The first time was at their request, and I was absolutely happy to do that. The second time was at my request, because I wanted to meet them together with the HSE to ensure we had the right people around the table to be able to make progress. I would also like to take the opportunity to mention people who are not part of that campaign, but who are also facing similar situations. I met with a group of parents and adults with intellectual disabilities last month, and I met with a young advocate yesterday and his parents, and I am meeting with two parents later today. In terms of what this budget provides for, this budget, for the first time ever, provides for planned residential placements, so that we are not always operating on a crisis management perspective. We are funding beds for the future, and that is the situation we want to get to. That is why this year we are investing in that. We expect that to be a success. We expect to be able to bring those places on board to fill those positions, and we want to grow on that next year. We are also capacity building through our service providers and through the capital plan that I mentioned earlier. We are also investing in better collaboration between the HSE and the Department of Housing and Local Government, because local authorities have a role to play in providing houses and homes and building houses and homes that can become respite and residential day care services. We now have six people within the HSE, six positions within the HSE—I think four of them are now filled—dedicated solely to that collaboration, to bring on-stream more buildings, to provide for those children and young adults with disabilities. Thank you. David Egan. Minister, it sounds good. I hope it is the case, because if you look at, for example, the additional funding in the last budget, which was an extra £40 million, that amounts to about 80 to 100 new homes. When you look at the numbers, there are more than 2,000 adults with intellectual disabilities who live with parents over the age of 70, and 500 of those are with parents over the age of 80. What they characterise the situation as is one where it is basically, unless somebody dies or gets severely ill at that age, there is no help available. It is a crisis management situation, and the allocations of funding to these organisations, they are saying, is way short of what is necessary. I will also reiterate the point about Sections 38 and 39. It surely doesn't help that we have essentially a second-class tier of people working in the health services effectively, or in the care services, who are in lesser-paying conditions than the people who work directly for HSE. The lack of funding, the lack of proper payment for people in this area, the lack of planned funding and so on, is leading to a crisis management situation for very vulnerable people and their parents. Minister, to respond? Just on your last point, Deputy, if I could just say that the WRC pay agreement reached in 2025 between Government departments and unions includes funding for a phased £9.25 pay increase, which will benefit workers in the Section 39 voluntary organisations. The agreement also includes an automatic linkage to future public sector pay agreements for those workers to match all future pay increases. In delivering on the £9.25 pay increase, the Government is improving the ability of service providers to actively recruit and retain staff, and supporting the overall sustainability of the sector. On Monday, the Taoiseach convened a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Disability. At that meeting, Minister Foley, our officials from our department, but also Minister for Housing and officials from his department will be at that meeting to discuss future planning when it comes to the physical buildings that we need to be able to increase capacity to deliver more residential and more respite across Ireland.