Disability Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-22
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Louis O'Hara (SF), Galway East

Carers across Ireland are the backbone of our healthcare system, saving the State an estimated €20 billion annually. Despite this massive contribution, they remain undervalued and pushed to the brink due to systemic failure to provide adequate respite. Respite is not a luxury. It is a fundamental necessity that prevents burnout, protects mental health and ensures the most vulnerable in our society receive sustainable long-term care. Organisations such as Ability West do fantastic work supporting families in the local area, and do their very best with the resources they have, but the reality is that in County Galway many parents of children with disabilities simply cannot access respite because of the lack of capacity and funding. The responsibility for this lies with the Government.
One parent has told me of how she has been fighting for overnight respite for her son with high care needs for some time. She informed me that no availability exists because he needs two-to-one care and his needs are too high. She said the system is very broken if the children with the highest level of needs are getting turned away. Another parent told me of her 12-year-old son who is non-verbal and autistic and has an intellectual disability. He attends respite at St. Teresa's respite house in Ballinasloe run by Ability West. She stressed that the staff there are exceptional and the care provided is invaluable but this support is already extremely limited with access only twice a month.
At present respite services have effectively been withdrawn due to a child requiring a crisis placement. While this child absolutely deserves appropriate care and support, the reality is that one child's crisis has resulted in other vulnerable children and families losing a service they depend on and this should never be allowed to happen. The situation has become so uncertain that although her son was offered a respite night this Saturday, she was warned he may have to be collected at any stage with little notice if issues arise. For her this is not respite but instability. She said that respite is one of the few places where he feels safe, secure and understood, and faced with the risk of this safety being disrupted she has had to make the difficult decision not to send him. No parent should be put in a position where they must choose between getting a break and protecting their child from a potentially distressing experience.
These are just two examples but they reflect the experiences of many families and many carers when it comes to accessing respite. Many parents are unable to access any support for their children. Many have to travel very long distances to access care. I have been told that out of 40 children who attend St. Oliver's Special School in Tuam only two can get respite at St. Teresa's in Ballnasloe. There is no overnight respite for children in the Tuam area, which Ability West has raised with me previously. Ability West has indicated a willingness to expand services, including the development of an after-school respite programme at St. Oliver's school in Tuam but the main barriers are funding and support. What will the Government do to increase funding for respite services in County Galway to support the expansion of services? When will this happen? As I have said, parents have been left waiting for years and years in many cases and they deserve much better.

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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/2026-04-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-22