Disability Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-19
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George Lawlor (LAB), Wexford

I have not mentioned the family or the company involved. The Minister of State is quite right in saying that this lady's care for her children is a vocation. I have worked with her over many years and her dedication and commitment to her children, who have profound and complex needs, is just remarkable. She is now exhausted and distressed. She has been fighting for a long time. If the Minister of State will believe it, she actually did some of the training for some of the nurses who came in. She showed them how to work various pieces of equipment.
Given the level of investment, this is incredibly frustrating to this family. That level of investment could be justified if they were getting the quality care that figure demands. Without meaning to put a price tag on anything, we are paying an agency whose only aim is to maximise profits, as we have seen in myriad sectors across Ireland. The moneys involved, which are almost being demanded by these agencies, are off the charts. As the Minister of State has suggested, the money being invested in the area of disability has gone up hugely but that is because we have to meet these bills. Imagine what a proper caring agency run by the State could get for that €1 million. We would be able to pay nurses and train them properly to the highest standards rather than forcing people into these positions. In many instances, we have no choice because the nurses are not there. They are not there because we are not remunerating them as we should. As I have said, €74 per hour goes to the agency while €18.50 goes to the nurse. That is criminal in the context of what the State could get back if that money went into a properly structured HSE-run agency.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-19