2025-11-26

14. Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department’s new disability unit for 2025-2027. [48526/25]

15. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department's new disability unit for 2025-2027. [61453/25]

16. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department's new disability unit for 2025-2027. [61464/25]

17. Deputy Ruth Coppinger asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department's new disability unit for 2025-2027. [63181/25]

18. Deputy Barry Heneghan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department’s new disability unit for 2025-2027. [63403/25]

19. Deputy Martin Daly asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department’s new disability unit for 2025-2027. [63424/25]

20. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department’s new disability unit for 2025-2027. [63465/25]

21. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department’s new disability unit for 2025-2027. [63467/25]

22. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the plan for a new disability unit in his Department. [63513/25]

23. Deputy Paul Lawless asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the plan for a new disability unit in his Department. [63529/25]

24. Deputy Ivana Bacik asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department's new disability unit for 2025-2027. [65263/25]

25. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department’s new disability unit for 2025-2027. [65415/25]

26. Deputy Mark Ward asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department’s new disability unit for 2025 to 2027. [65416/25]

27. Deputy Liam Quaide asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department’s new disability unit for 2025-2027. [65439/25]

28. Deputy Erin McGreehan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department's new disability unit for 2025-2027. [65548/25]

29. Deputy Cathal Crowe asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department's new disability unit for 2025-2027. [65550/25]

30. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department’s new disability unit for 2025-2027. [65604/25]

31. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the plan for a new disability unit in his Department. [65715/25]

32. Deputy Jennifer Whitmore asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department’s new disability unit for 2025-2027. [65784/25]

33. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the plan for a new disability unit in his Department. [65832/25]

34. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department’s new disability unit for 2025-2027. [65858/25]

35. Deputy Conor D. McGuinness asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the programme plan for his Department’s new disability unit for 2025-2027. [65862/25]

We have 15 to 16 minutes left. There are 20 Deputies to speak on the next question. I propose to divide the time remaining after the Taoiseach's opening statement between a number of Deputies.

It is a brilliant statement.

The Taoiseach will have to try to be brief.

I jest.

It is all in the delivery.

I will try to cut it short to allow others to come in. I propose to take Questions Nos. 14 to 35, inclusive, together. I established the disability unit in the Department to bring about a renewed focus and urgency and out of a desire to drive progress on disability issues. The unit's first programme plan, published in September, outlines how the unit will drive the delivery of the Government's new national disability strategy, working across government to make the ambitions a reality. In particular, the unit will look to drive innovation, to get things done, to bring momentum to policy implementation, to troubleshoot, where appropriate, to improve the delivery of services, and to get strategic thinking on future challenges. The unit will also support the Cabinet committee on disability. The first programme plan for the unit outlines ten priority areas for the period from 2025 to 2027 across five workstreams. The first workstream relates to transforming children's disability services, early years education and health. The second is about increasing system capacity and the third is about opening doors and addressing barriers to employment pathways and supports. The fourth relates to implementing the national disability strategy and the fifth is on planning and designing for the future. The programme plan allows for further workstreams to be assigned to the unit as may be needed. We do not want to duplicate the work of Ministers or Departments but to support them in improving services and getting things done. It is already up and running. The Cabinet committee on disability has met five times to date. With the support of the unit, we have looked at the new national disability strategy. As the House will know, that has gone through and has now been published. The provision of therapists in special schools is up and running. Some €16 million has been allocated for that this year. There have also been improvements to the delivery of services and the assessment of need process is being reformed, which includes legislative reform. The budget was impacted by the unit and the Cabinet subcommittee and there was a significant focus on disability, particularly the income disregards for carer's allowance, among other initiatives and payments. The budget also provided a record €3.8 billion allocation towards specialist disability services. This represents a 20% increase year on year. That is to provide permanent dedicated funding for essential disability services. The investment in children's disability services will provide therapy services and strengthen the children's disability network teams through the provision of additional staff and so forth. Some €20 million was targeted at the assessment of need waitlist initiative, providing up to 6,500 clinical assessments. We are developing our budget spotlight on disability. That will be published in due course. It relates to the last budget but will also provide further thinking with regard to future budgets. We are also looking at developments in the area of transport and mobility. We are awaiting proposals from the Departments of Transport and Finance in that regard.

I propose to take the first six Deputies and to allow the Taoiseach six minutes to respond.

This is a topic the Taoiseach is very familiar with. He has visited the Rainbow Club on dozens of occasions at this stage and knows the great work that Jon, Karen and the board do. When Senator Rabbitte was the Minister of State, she was the first to allocate funding to the Rainbow Club under a service level agreement to provide respite care for children. As the Taoiseach will know, every week, over 1,200 children avail of this service, which is provided on a shoestring budget. The Taoiseach will be very familiar with the difficulties the club had in acquiring a nearby site, the former HSE ambulance building. It now has that building and has been lucky enough to engage an architect who is a professional in this field pro bono to design a bespoke building that is fit for the club's purposes. We need to move this project on. We need the HSE and the Government to support it financially to deliver it. It is going to be a massive undertaking for the charity. What is the Taoiseach's office going to do to advance the project?

The National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030 was launched with great fanfare but we await the action plan. There is much talk of accountability. Will the Taoiseach give me a timeline for the introduction of that action plan? Who will be taking the lead, particularly with regard to oversight and accountability? Will it be the unit, the Cabinet committee or the Department of Children, Disability and Equality? How exactly will it work? How will we see improvements, whether in relation to assessments and therapies or the low level of disabled people who are involved in employment and the need for schemes that actually work? A lot of work is needed to make schemes such as the wage subsidy scheme and the work and access programme fit for purpose.

The level of unemployment among disabled people in Ireland is among the worst in Europe. I recently met with a number of disabled people in my constituency who have excellent qualifications and skills and who are willing and eager to work but who are stuck in unemployment. There are a number of barriers to employment that need to be removed. We are far behind other European countries in this regard. In 2021, the OECD released a report that made a number of recommendations as to how to tackle this. Those recommendations have still not been implemented. When will they be implemented in full? What is the Government doing to tackle the scandalously high unemployment levels for disabled people in Ireland?

Bhí mé ag caint faoi seo dhá sheachtain ó shin agus an tseachtain seo caite. An rud atá i gceist ná Stapolin Educate Together National School in Baldoyle, which has a petition. Children from the school were in the Dáil last week. It needs two autism classrooms to be sanctioned by the Minister. There are eight children in mainstream classes with eligibility letters and a further 30 in the catchment area who are on waiting lists. This is a huge priority for me and I would love it to be addressed.

David and Nicole have a five-year-old son with autism, and an older son. They live in a maisonette, which is 29 sq. m. It is absolutely tiny and rank with damp. Because of his autism, their son has serious sensory processing issues. He is a flight risk. I know these flats well. They have very dangerous concrete steps, which are a serious risk to him. Occupational therapists, medical professionals and people in school have said that he has to be got out of there as he cannot develop or do his occupational therapy if he is living in these conditions. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council says autism is too prevalent in the community to give it medical priority. That is outrageous. The prevalence of a condition is not a reason to say it is not a priority if the child is in danger. If a child is in danger, it is a priority to get the child out of danger.

I appreciate that. The Taoiseach has the message.

I would like there to be an intervention on that.

The budget was a savage attack on disabled people. It took over €1,000 out of the pockets of disabled people and betrayed the promise in the programme for Government to introduce a permanent annual cost-of-disability support payment. The last time I asked about this, the Taoiseach claimed the cost of disability would be looked at in the next budget. The cost-of-living crisis is now. The cost-of-disability crisis is now. Some 70,000 people who are disabled or have a long-term illness are living in poverty. That is one in three. I have been inundated with emails from disabled people asking for winter cost-of-living and cost-of-disability payment. Many will be forced to choose between heating and eating this Christmas. They also want a permanent cost-of-disability payment without further delay. The Taoiseach has billions of euro in surplus. Do not be a Scrooge this Christmas. Please act on it.

The children's disability network team, CDNT, in Meath is not fully staffed. According to statistics I received today, there are 20 vacant posts across disability teams in Kells, Dunshaughlin, Navan, Slane and Trim. Separate data received by Aontú today show that the Government is actually reducing the number of college places for speech and language therapists, from 370 in the year before Covid to 355 last year. The Government is reducing the number of students filling the necessary college places on an annual basis. What is the Taoiseach saying to parents whose children have been waiting for 14 months to see the CDNT in County Meath and to the children who are being bounced around endlessly from CAMHS, the CDNTs and other services?

Before the Taoiseach replies, could he maybe answer the other Deputies in writing? Sixteen Deputies did not get to ask questions. They might get some form of response from the Taoiseach.

You can bring some more of them in if you want, a Cheann Comhairle.

Only if the Taoiseach needs less time. We cannot go over the 45 minutes provided.

I am not going to write replies to oral questions. I have given an overall response to everybody.

I am bound by the timelines set down.

Do I have six minutes remaining?

Yes.

I will get around to everybody who has asked a question.

I am talking about the Deputies who have not have not got in.

The Taoiseach cannot really answer questions that have not been asked.

I know, but that is it.

It is a new departure if I am going to do a written reply to every oral question. That is not on either.

The Taoiseach should go ahead. I suppose it is just a casualty of how interruptions affect the course of questions. To be fair, the Taoiseach cannot answer a question that has not been asked. We are delaying the answering process.

Could we even have 30 seconds to ask a question and then maybe the Taoiseach could respond?

No. We cannot go over time. I do not set the time. I do not have that discretion.

No, but we could stay within the time.

There are 15 Deputies left.

Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan raised the Rainbow Club, which is doing exceptional work. Jon and Karen O'Mahony have been exceptional leaders in that regard. The former Minister of State, now Senator Rabbitte, did good work on a service level agreement. I was involved in advocating for that building, which was a HSE building, to be allocated to the Rainbow Club. I will certainly continue to work with them and to support them with capital. What is important is that we get a timeline and some idea of how we can progress that as quickly as we possibly can. It is a very good, practical example of how a parent-led, community-based approach can develop services for autism in a nimble and flexible way that has helped so many families. Deputy Ó Murchú asked about the action plan. That will come. I do not have an exact date but it is on target. It is fairly imminent.

Who will lead on it?

Please, Deputy Ó Murchú.

The Minister, Deputy Foley, will lead, with the support of the unit in my office, but she will also report to the Cabinet subcommittee, which will then make recommendations to the Cabinet. That is how this will work. The Cabinet subcommittee is very important because all the key Ministers have to be there. I agree with Deputy Cian O'Callaghan that the unemployment levels among the disability community is too high, and the barriers are too much. Part of the strategy in terms of what I am trying to do with the Minister, Deputy Calleary, is to remove some of those barriers and to create additional supports to make sure that employers are even more incentivised to recruit people. The intention is also to give supports to those who employ people with disabilities on a more sustainable basis. I do not disagree with the Deputy. The historic underemployment of people with disabilities in society is something that is exercising me. I will pursue the issue raised by Deputy Heneghan about the two autism classes in the Educate Together school in Baldoyle. I agree with Deputy Boyd Barrett. That is a very strange response from the council referring to the prevalence of autism. Autism is a spectrum, a continuum. There is high-functioning autism, people in the middle and those with autism which is very severe and profound. The council should be able to use the general guidelines in respect of health needs more generally. I am at a loss as to why the council cannot say in this case that the child needs prioritisation and a proper house to facilitate the treatment and life of the child. That is something on which I will go back to the Minister for housing in respect of guidelines to be sent to councils in that respect. I would not have thought it necessary. I thought councils would have enough flexibility to do this. I disagree with Deputy Paul Murphy's description of the budget as a savage attack, but €3 billion has been invested in special education as an outcome of the budget, as well as €130 million for grants to adapt the houses of older people and disabled people. There was a €10 increase per week in the disability allowance, an expansion of the wage subsidy scheme, an increase of €375 in the income limit for carer's benefit, and a €20 increase in the monthly domiciliary care allowance. That is not a savage attack on disability. We have to pursue the cost of disability and the Minister will bring plans in the next budget in respect of that. In response to Deputy Tóibín, the vacancy rate nationally has come down for CDNTs. We have increased the allocation of therapy places in third level colleges.

I thank the Taoiseach. Even though there is time left, the point is that this format is not working. The place to discuss that is at the Business Committee on Thursday. I ask Members to bring it up and we can sort out something else. Certainly, where there is a grouping of 19 Members, it is not possible to give the Taoiseach time to answer in the remaining time. I am sorry for those who did not get in but there is just nothing we can do, other than discuss it at the Business Committee and change the format.