Disability Services Dail Éireann — 2026-04-21 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central Deputy John Connolly was the first to ask a question. The schools therapy programme is working well. On the issue of the single point of access, the HSE has embarked on the idea of a one-door approach. The outgoing CEO, Bernard Gloster, was very focused on this. All last year at the Cabinet subcommittee on disability, he gave a very clear undertaking on behalf of the HSE that there would be a single point of access. Culturally and every other way, that is now being rolled out across the HSE. Deputy Connolly is absolutely correct when he says that children should not be moved from pillar to post. There should be one point open and there is now. It has been established. I will ask the HSE to get a report to the Deputy in terms of an update on it, but obviously a big change like that will take some time to bed down and be uniform. It is not disconnected from school places or the broader area of looking after children with disabilities such that we can move faster to provide the services the children require as opposed to being put from pillar to post. I will ask the HSE if we can get an update on that for the Deputy. He is absolutely correct that it is the only way to go. Up to last year, the situation was not acceptable. We had a debate about the therapy in schools service. I undertook prior to the election that it was a red-line issue for us that we wanted a schools-based therapy service. In many ways, that flowed from the inadequacy of what was happening within the health service in respect of therapy services and provision. To Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh, I would say that the budget allocated €3 billion to special education alone. There was €130 million for grants to adapt the homes of older people and disabled people. There is a €10 increase in the disability allowance and the expansion of the wage subsidy scheme. There was a €375 increase to the income limit for carer's benefit and we increased the monthly domiciliary care allowance by €20. There is a lot of long-term, permanent, positive measures for disability. The Deputy is correct in raising the wage subsidy issue. I have spoken to the Minister, Deputy Calleary, on this. Improvements were made last year but we are open to more radical improvements. In particular, I will speak to the Minister about disabled entrepreneurs. I do not see any reason they should be excluded from the wage subsidy scheme. We also need to look at the facility and capacity of people with disabilities to participate in the workforce without losing their disability allowance immediately. There are lots of issues around that. There are limits to how much a person's income rises. We need to be a bit more radical in that respect. Workplace participation will be an area of focus in the next budget. People with disabilities are not being given enough opportunities to enter the workplace. We have a poor record on this as a society and as a country. We have to do far better in that respect. The public service has made a lot of progress but needs to make more progress in facilitating employment. We have various employment schemes, such as Deaf Enterprises in my own area. We have made good progress with the HSE in that regard but for a long time there was no clear structure to support highly qualified craftwork such as upholstery and the repair of furniture, which is a great circular economy solution to the wider community that benefits. They were very skilled people but the financial sustainability and underpinning of it was not what it should be, so every now and again they would come looking for a bailout or some supports. We have improved upon that. Those are the areas. There are many other kinds of enterprises of that kind that we will do better on. I agree with Deputy Quaide that it is fragmented. We have inherited a system long before the State became involved in the seventies in disabilities where many of what we now call section 38 and section 39 organisations emerged from a period before State intervention, when organisations were set up to look after people with disabilities. We have come a long way since then but it is still problematic. There have been lots of improvements, including service level agreements, regarding complementarity with the State but the sustainability of quite a number of the organisations is an issue. In the long-term evolution of services for disabilities, there will have to be greater State involvement but that can only happen through an evolutionary process. There is a lot of expertise in these bodies as well, which we cannot lose. There is great voluntary endeavour and community and family engagement attached to it, all of which are positives when channelled and supported in the right direction. We do need to work hard at that. I think the Deputy said there are 1,172 grant-aided organisations providing services. Some are small and some are very large. We need to improve and streamline the relationship with the HSE regarding accountability and strategic future planning. I have an interest in this area. It is one of the reasons we have brought the ETBs in more on special education. Over time, the ETBs will have to develop capacity and experience, which they may not have had. At least now they have a wide range of resources and administrative capacity that can support the establishment of new special schools at primary and post-primary level. Perhaps we could have new campuses in education which would involve what we might call mainstream primary and secondary and special education schools all on the one campus. Ideally, that is where we should head in future school development so that there is proper integration on the campus overall. However, I do not disagree with the Deputy's fundamental point regarding the fragmentation. To Deputy Coppinger, I will seek out where that report is. There is no reason it should not be published. In terms of Hansfield and Ongar, we will engage. We will have 25,000 SNAs this year. We might now have more because the Government took a decision this morning in terms of the inclusive special school model, which will mean significantly more teachers and SNAs. This is because of the increased numbers who availed of the portal that was opened early last October. I cannot go into detail on every specific school but I do not know whether they have appealed that decision by the NCSE in respect of the number of SNAs they have sought. Deputy Heneghan raised the issue of the modular building. I will ask the Minister for education to respond. I do not know if the Deputy has talked to the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, about this or not. Regarding the Save our SNAs campaign, I will meet the group and anyone who wants to meet me. My main point was that we are not in the zone where we have to save SNAs, because the number of SNAs is expanding. We will have a workforce planning framework for SNAs. Redeployment means that there will be employment security. I have a great commitment to SNAs. I introduced the concept in 1998 when I was Minister for education, and the number has grown exponentially. I see it increasing. The school therapy service is very important. I also think we have to look at other methods and supports that schools may require, such as behavioural therapy over time. There is not a one-size-fits-all model for how we approach children in need. On the Before We Die campaign, I have met the group. At the next meeting of the disability committee, we will be looking specifically at that shelter issue. I have spoken to the Ministers for housing and disability. It will take a whole-of-government approach to make sure that we can provide adequate sheltered housing and supported housing for adults with disabilities so as to relieve their parents of the stress and anxiety they are currently experiencing. Deputy Ó Murchú referred to the wage subsidy campaign and the all-Ireland, did he? --- 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/2026-04-21/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-21