Disability Services Dail Éireann — 2025-12-18 ============================================================ Emer Higgins (FG), Dublin Mid-West As Minister for State with special responsibility for disabilities, I am committed to delivering a step-change in supports and services for people with disabilities and their families, ensuring they are enabled to live full lives of their own choosing and on an equitable basis with everyone else in society. The Department has been working closely with the HSE to deliver on this ambition and improve disability services for all who use them. The Deputy will be aware that services are provided on the basis of need and funding is provided now through the regional health areas, RHAs. The Deputy has asked about the improvements being made to disability services in Kerry, which falls within the HSE South West RHA. As part of a broader programme of work, the HSE, with the support of the Department, has progressed a range of service improvements in the Kerry area. As previously stated, the programme for Government includes a commitment to the continued expansion of all types of respite services, building on additional investment and progress over the past few years. The HSE South West disability service operates separate children and adult regional respite forums. Each forum manages the referral and respite service provision for the population of the region to ensure equitable access to respite services, consistent with each person's assessed need and preference. Service provider representatives and HSE South West disability service personnel comprise the membership of the regional respite forum. The HSE South West disability services provide a range of respite models for children and adults and these include: residential overnight respite centres, after-school clubs for children and young people, in-home support, outreach support and holiday breaks for adults. These options ensure that respite is provided in the manner which best meets the needs of the people and their families and carers. RHA HSE South West, which extends to the Cork and Kerry areas, provided 17,181 respite overnights in 2024, 2,833 day-only respite sessions and supported 760 people with a disability. Kerry residential respite services for children aged between 6 and 18 years of age are delivered by St. John of God Services. There are two residential respite houses, one in north Kerry and one in south Kerry. Each house has four respite beds and operates seven days per week, with planned closures this equates to approximately 2,800 respite beds for children. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. 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