Residential Institutions
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-18
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Liam Quaide (SD), Cork East

I thank the Minister of State. The Minister said in a recent budget Estimate session that she wants to move away from private outsourcing but the proportion of money the Department is spending on these services has nearly doubled over the past four years. While the Minister is saying one thing, her Department's actions are the opposite. I can understand the ongoing reliance on these providers but this will not change as long as the Department is devoid of a plan for residential, vocational and community support services that are integrated with each other in each community. We need a service plan for disability akin to A Vision for Change. That document had key staffing targets per mental health service and per head of population. We have a very haphazard pattern of disability services in different areas based, essentially, on a tradition of the service being in that territory. When is the Department going to provide data - even general data - on the distance between a disabled person's house and their community of origin? This is a human rights issue and data on it should be recorded.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:29+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-18