Disability Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-17
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Liam Quaide (SD), Cork East

The separation of the Minister of State's decision-making around the publication of the Grant Thornton report from the HSE's decision-making is perplexing because this report seems to span across disability services.
As we all know, there are children waiting years for therapies, families unable to get adequate respite or home support, young people falling into gaps as they reach adulthood, adults living with ageing parents who have no idea what will happen when they can no longer care for them, older adults with no consistent care pathway, and people being placed far from their families because services have not been planned locally. Behind those figures are people living with immense stress, uncertainty and exhaustion. The HSE has commissioned this work to establish the scale of current and future need. The draft material clearly confirms that demand is outstripping capacity and that planning, funding, capital and investment are not aligned with long-term needs. If that is the HSE's own analysis, why on earth would the response be not to publish it?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-17