Disability Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-23
============================================================

Emer Higgins (FG), Dublin Mid-West

I agree with the Deputy that we need timelines and we do have some timelines in place. This year's budget will fund the planned places that will happen this year. In terms of capacity building, we have targets and deadlines outlined in our disability capital plan, in which there was also an uplift this year.
This year, we are hiring for six new additional roles within the HSE. Those postholders will liaise with, for example, local authorities, approved housing bodies and developers and work with them to ensure we are providing capacity at all levels, whether through private or public means.
I was in County Donegal last week where I met the access officer in Letterkenny, who informed me that, as part of the Donegal development plan, 30% of all new homes being built by local authorities or AHBs in the county will have to be accessible. That is really good. We need more local authorities to follow that example. That would help us to plan for the future.

---

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/2026-04-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-23