I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important matter this evening. I have never used the facility of the Adjournment debate in a frivolous manner or for a subject which has not been important. The record will show that any time I have used this facility it has been for a very special and important reason.
My reason for raising this subject tonight is because of the further victimisation of the disadvantaged. Can there be a more disadvantaged group in our society than the mentally handicapped? The Government and Ministers have continually stressed that in their cutback policies no disadvantaged groups would suffer, yet we see all around us every day in the health services, the welfare services, housing services and in this instance in the education services, ample evidence that the disadvantaged are being victimised further and are suffering the most cruel blows as a result of the Government's policies of cutbacks.
The case I want to refer to is the payment of an annual grant by Kilkenny VEC to the day care centre for the adult mentally handicapped in Kilkenny city. By direction of the Department of Education that grant has to be discontinued from 30 June this year, which is just a few days away. This grant which was paid by Kilkenny VEC to the adult mentally handicapped centre has been in operation since 1978 when an agreement with the management of the centre, known as SOS Kilkenny Limited, came into existence. The agreement provided for an annual payment of money, aggregating to 15 part time teaching hours per week. Having regard to the increases in part time teaching rates, there is a record of an increasing annual payment each year since 1978. For example, the total amount paid between 1 July 1986 and 31 August 1987 was £9,367 and the total for the current year will possibly be around £10,000. The grant paid to the SOS centre in Kilkenny enabled that centre to employ, for 15 hours a week, a home economics instructor whose role has been to maintain a canteen at the day care centre and, more importantly, to instruct up to 70 mentally handicapped adults in self-sufficiency skills, which is a most important job. This course would save a lot of money to the various services in future years because it must be appreciated that the more self-sufficiency skills mentally retarded people are taught and shown how to perform then the less dependency they will have on other sources of assistance and in the long run this more than pays for itself.
This voluntary organisation, SOS, cannot maintain this service in the absence of the annual grant from the VEC because they have many other heavy commitments. This is a major undertaking and they are doing a marvellous job in the centre. Kilkenny VEC, of which I am a member, agree that SOS cannot carry this extra burden. If they do take it on it means that some other service for the mentally handicapped will suffer. Whether we are members of health boards or VECs, we are continuously told that cutbacks must be brought about without hurting these people. However, clear directives have been issued from the Minister's office in the Department of Education stating the priorities that have to be adopted and nowhere is any priority given to the instruction provided by this VEC to the mentally handicapped. The letters to the committee and the chief executive officers which come from the Minister's Department have all kinds of threats in them on what will happen if they deviate from the strict terms of the circular letter. I am referring in particular to the circular letter dated 16 April 1988 which clearly identified the priorities by which the VECs are obliged and compelled to abide. Because of the contents of that circular letter, the VEC in Kilkenny were left with no option but to discontinue this funding. All that is required from the Department is the very modest amount of £10,000, in order that this very important scheme can be continued.
I cannot stress sufficiently how important this scheme is or how imperative it is that the Department act immediately. I am not accusing the Minister of gross indifference. I prefer to take the line that there may have been an oversight. Granted, an oversight on a matter of this kind is serious and should not happen but I am prepared to take that more lenient view.
I know that the Minister herself visited Kilkenny last week when a number of people mentioned this matter to her. I hope the Minister of State, who is representing her here this evening, will be in a position to reassure Kilkenny VEC that this £10,000 will be made available to the committee to ensure the continuance of this essential service. It is unthinkable that such a service should suffer as a result of cutbacks no matter now serious the overall economic position may be.
I said at the outset of my remarks that it is for the gravest reasons only that I raise something on the Adjournment of the House — the record will prove that to be the case. This is a grave matter and is capable of early resolution by the Minister amending the letter of 16 April last and providing these moneys for the mentally handicapped.
I might mention also that there is not a travellers centre under the aegis of Kilkenny VEC. I know the Minister rightly affords priority to this scheme for travellers but there is not such a centre located in Kilkenny. Therefore, there is no expenditure in that respect in Kilkenny. This would strengthen our argument that money be made available for this unique service. I would hope that the Minister would not contend that the VECs of the vocational education system have no responsibility for the instruction of mentally handicapped people. It was an enlightened move in 1978 when the VECs took on this form of instruction of mentally handicapped adults. It is something that should be encouraged, developed and expanded rather than cut dead in its tracks because of the current overall economic position.
