Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-22
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Seamus Healy (IND), Tipperary South

The State is failing persons with disabilities and their carers. The disability services are in crisis on all levels. From the minute a parent or a guardian notices a difficulty with a child, they must fight for everything: for an assessment of needs, with over 22,000 children now waiting; for an appropriate crèche place; for an appropriate school place; for access to therapy services; for respite places; and, indeed, for residential places. Today I want to focus on respite and residential services for adults with intellectual disabilities, that is, children transitioning to adulthood at 18 years and older adults.
Respite services for young adults are almost non-existent. They finish in school, special school usually, and effectively fall off a cliff. If they are lucky, they may get a weekend of respite every six months or maybe not at all. This puts huge pressure on family carers, who often become ill themselves. This leads to the question posed by the Before We Die campaign. That question is: “Who will care for my son or daughter’s needs when I am no longer able to do that or when I die?” It is not uncommon to hear a parent say, “I hope they go before me.”
Some 92% of adults with an intellectual disability rely on a parent as their primary carer but only 2% of those have a plan in place for their future. Some 2,000 persons with an intellectual disability live with parents aged 70 years or over. Five hundred of those are with parents of 80 years of age or over. This means that, typically, residential places are provided only when an emergency arises or a carer becomes ill or passes away. This model of crisis management is cruel and heartless and more often than not means that the adult with the disability has to leave their community. Statistics show that over 600 reside in counties outside their own and over 200 reside more than 100 km from their previous home. This is also the most expensive way to provide services as they are provided by private, for-profit companies.
The services are in crisis and we need a new statutory agency, including the HSE, local authorities, section 38 and section 39 organisations and families, to plan and provide disability services. We need an emergency funded plan immediately. We need a statutory register of needs and a personal plan at age 18 for all adults as they go into adulthood. We need that urgently.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-22