Disability Issues Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-26 ============================================================ Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel I welcome the Minister of State to the House. She is here on behalf of the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality, Deputy Foley, who, I understand, is tied up with parliamentary business and cannot be here today. I am very conscious that the national housing strategy for disabled people 2022-27 provides a framework for the delivery of housing for people with all levels of disability. I also understand, of course, that housing is ultimately the responsibility of the Minister for housing and is not the responsibility of the Minister, Deputy Foley. However, there is a level of dovetailing or cross-interest here in the sense that the Department of Children, Disability and Equality actually funds the provision of supports for community living in collaboration with the HSE. There is a crossover there and I want to acknowledge the excellent collaboration between the two Departments and the two Ministers. I was prompted to raise this as a Commencement matter because about ten days ago there was an headline in the Irish Examiner which read, "Councils now have to set housing delivery targets for disabled people". That struck a chord with me. The article in the Irish Examiner referred to the Minister, Deputy Foley, and to a statement or contribution she made at the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis. That statement was carried in Monday's papers. The article referred to a game changing new policy that will be "aimed at two groups - people who are able to live independently with some supports, and people who need specialist 24-7 wraparound care". The Minister of State, having spoken about these issues previously, knows the importance of having both. We want people to live independently, if at all possible but we recognise that is not possible for everyone. We recognise the policy of decongregation of institutional settings and understand the importance of wraparound services for people who have limited ability or limited access to supports. There is no one-size-fits-all course that works for everyone so there has to be flexibility in supports and provisions for people who want to live in their community. We all want to enable people to live and play a full and meaningful role within their own communities as much as possible but we also recognise, as do disability advocates and those with a disability, that they need supports. The practice of emptying out fully residential support systems without providing wraparound supports has not worked. I am very familiar with a number of charities, which I will not mention here, that embarked on the emptying out of old, unsuitable institutional buildings. They put people in one-bedroom units, particularly around the greater Dublin area. People had been institutionalised in settings for a long time and suddenly after weeks there were no supports. Supports fell away. The novelty wore off. I think we have done a lot of learning there. I also liked what the Minister, Deputy Foley, said, that for far too long disabled people have not been a priority for social and affordable housing. I think we will all agree with that. She mentioned the role of local authorities and the significance of that, and then mentioned the targets. Unless we measure this, and we set targets for all our local authorities, it is simply not going to happen. I commend the Minister, Deputy Foley, in particular on the initiative, although it is a Government initiative. We recognise that too many people with disabilities are not being enabled to play a full and meaningful role in the community in the way they wish. We also hear that it ties in with choice as regards where they want to live and the level of support they want. It is a point worth making here again, although it is not part of the Commencement matter, that far too many people with a disability who want to work cannot get work. There is a bigger picture here. Today our focus is on housing and the collaboration between the Ministers, Deputies Foley and Browne. To follow all that initiative and support, we must put the money in place. I would be very interested to hear the Minister of State's response and am grateful to her for coming here this afternoon to deal with this matter. --- 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/seanad/2026-05-26/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:59+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-26