Richard Boyd Barrett Demands Protection for St Joseph's Dementia Care

The Programme for Government makes specific reference to implementing the National Dementia Strategy and as you are aware there is a major anxiety, fear about the fate of St Joseph's Dementia Care Facility in my own constituency in Shankill. I brought this up last week, I sought a debate and got a debate with the Minister over its fate. It is threatened with closure, it is the biggest and best dementia care, it is the model dementia care facility in the country and there are real fears. It would be a disaster for dementia sufferers, their family, both current and future dementia sufferers and users and families if it were to close down. It simply cannot happen. It cannot happen. Now there were some reassuring comments made by Minister Harris but it needs to be definitive and critically its fate turns on a recognition by the Government, by the Minister for Health and the HSE that the care provided for high dependency dementia sufferers will be funded as against a sort of minimal level of funding that is currently coming from the HSE through the Fair Deal scheme. So, Taoiseach, can you tell us in line with commitments in this area in the Programme for Government that the gold standard in terms of dementia care facilities in this country will be protected and that the funding will be provided and that the anxiety being suffered by dementia sufferers and their families will be ended? The sooner you make a statement on that the better. Very quickly, just to make a general point, given previous comments, that of course the Programme for Government is not a document that emanates from the Confidence and Supply Arrangement. There is a separate document on policy in relation to Confidence and Supply. The Programme for Government emanates from the Fine Gael Party and Independent Alliance. The Confidence and Supply document is a much tighter document. And I would also make the point that all the Ministers belong to the Fine Gael and Independence. There is no Fine Gael Ministers. No Fine Gael Minister for State. So, references to that are just superficial or shallow and have no substance to them. We will hold the Government to account, like every other party here will hold the Government to account. And you know that secretly none of you wanted a general election while there was a no-deal Brexit being threatened. And privately, none of you really wanted to push it too far either. But you were happy enough to criticise Fine Gael for facilitating the continuation of Government in the context of a no-deal Brexit. Now, in a follow-up, just to the previous discussion, I will be very brief with Keown Corle. Relating to the first group of questions, you have a question from the Prime Minister for State. I will be very brief with Keown Corle. I will be very brief with Keown Corle. I will be very brief with the Prime Minister for State. So, references to that are just superficial or shallow and have no substance to them. We will hold the Government to account, like every other party here will hold the Government to account. And you know that secretly none of you wanted a general election while there was a no-deal Brexit being threatened. And privately, none of you really wanted to push it too far either. But you were happy enough to criticise Fine Gael for facilitating the continuation of Government in the context of a no-deal Brexit. Now, in a follow-up, just to the previous discussion, I will be very brief with Keown Corle. Relating to the first group of questions, you will be aware, Tisek, that the Programme for Government talks directly about, quote, ending the housing shortage and homelessness, unquote. Do you think this commitment, Tisek, will be delivered? And in relation to mental health, it is widely acknowledged that the consistent failure of the Minister for Health to implement agreed plans and the use of mental health funding to balance overspending elsewhere has directly led to a failure to deliver the level and quality of services which are so badly needed. So, the Government got the tools, got the funding, but the Minister did not deliver the service on the ground. And in Wexford in particular, there is huge anger around mental health in particular. We did secure extra funding under Confidence and Supply, and actually secured it every year for mental health. But each year, much of this has not been spent, and the teams throughout the country have been understaffed and not recruited. The time is up. That is particularly true in child and adolescent mental health. Can you tell us, Tisek, what specific actions you have taken to make sure that the allocated budget is used for mental health and the unfilled posts are filled as soon as possible? Tisek, we have just three minutes now to conclude on this, please. Thanks, Keown Corle. I think the first question was in relation to education. While there are, of course, challenges in the education sector, I think it is an area in which the country is doing well. We know, for example, how well our children are performing relative to their counterparts in maths and reading, for example. The budget for this year for education is 11 billion euros. It will go up again next year. And that is the biggest budget ever for education in the history of the state. So I don't think any government has invested in education more than this government made up of Finnegan and the Independent Alliance has. What does that mean in practical terms? It means more teachers, the lowest pupil-teacher ratio in our primary schools ever. It means we have been able to increase capitation grants, not fully restore them yet, but we have been able to increase them. It has enabled pay restoration for our hard-working teachers and other staff in education. It has enabled a huge school building program, which is evident now all over the country and also in our universities and ITs. We now have, I think, about 15,000 special needs assistants, more special classes than ever before, and a special needs budget of 1.7 billion, which is very substantial. At third level, we have record numbers of people making it to third level, which is very encouraging and really important for our future, and more people from non-traditional backgrounds attending higher education than ever before. And we have reforms of the curriculum, which we should be aware of, for example, the reformed junior cycle, and the introduction of new subjects like physical education, and also computer science being exam subjects for the first time. In terms of the election date, no election date has been discussed or agreed, but my view is well known, and it was set out in writing back in August 2018. In relation to St. Joseph's, I know discussions are ongoing with regard to that particular centre. The objective is absolutely to secure the future of the centre and to make sure that it is sustainable into the future. The briefing that I have tells me that rather than the funding being minimal, in fact, the centre already receives among the highest funding for patient of any provider contracted under the NTPF. Now, there may well be very good reasons for that. The very high quality of care, or perhaps the acuity and needs that the patients have, but rather than the funding being minimal, as the deputy suggests, it's in the top five or six in terms of funding of organisations per patient by the NTPF. So there is active engagement now involving the HGC and the NTPF with the provider to secure the future of that service. In terms of mental health, the budget is going to be over a billion euros in 2020 for the very first time. That's up from about 750 million euros a couple of years ago, but I think we'll all acknowledge that there's more to providing health services than funding them. Our health services are well funded by international standards, and we are out to a young population, but we perhaps don't get the outcomes that people are entitled to expect. But we are seeing some positive changes, I think, when it comes to mental health. The new Forensic Mental Health Hospital in Port Tran is now almost finished. We'll open next year coming in on time and on budget, allowing us to close those very Dickensian facilities, or Victorian facilities rather, in Dundrum. Weightingness for CAMs are now falling. They've fallen by about 25% in the last couple of months, which is positive. The increased funding for the National Office for Suicide Prevention and the implementation of the suicide strategy is showing some results. A 30% fall in number of suicides, not all down to that by any means, but at least going in the right direction. And we will launch very soon for the very first time a 24-7 helpline for people who are suffering mental health difficulties, because there are actually a lot of mental health services in Ireland, but sometimes they're not joined up very well. And this will create a pathway by which people can contact 24-7, I have two weeks ago, 24-7 to access the services they need.