Who is taking the Adjournment matter?
School Staffing.
The Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Mary Wallace.
I am disappointed the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, did not remain in the House for another five minutes to listen to this issue because it is important.
We have just had a vote about protecting the vulnerable in society and this is another issue whereby the vulnerable are being made pay for the waste of this Government. Eight primary schoolchildren from across counties Laois and Offaly attend St. Colman's national school in Mucklagh outside Tullamore for the specific purpose of attending a speech and language class. Some of these children, particularly those from County Laois, leave home at 8 a.m. and make a two-hour round trip because this is the only speech and language class for their age group in these two counties. Their parents made a difficult decision in choosing to take them out of the far more convenient local schools in which they were settled but in which they did not have the assistance they needed. Their schools could not give them the intensive therapy they required.
On average each child gets the opportunity of only two years of such intensive therapy. They get it because they were assessed as needing this assistance by both an educational psychologist and by a speech and language therapist. They need it because, without it, despite having average IQs like every other child in their schools, they will not be able to read, do mathematics or access the school curriculum. Some of these children started in St. Colman's only last September.
Last Friday the parents of each child received a letter from the Health Service Executive telling them that the speech and language therapist is to commence maternity leave at the end of October. I hasten to add that she is perfectly entitled to do this. However, there will be no cover for her when she leaves next week. When the speech and language therapy manager applied to the HSE to recruit a locum to help these children that permission was denied. From next week, therefore, these eight children who attend this special class will be taught by their regular teacher and will have no speech and language therapy.
We have been told time and again by this Government that frontline services will not be cut and that the vulnerable will be looked after. It seems, however, that this Government cannot resist the chance to give the vulnerable a kick at every opportunity. These children have already received therapy in clinics in counties Laois and Offaly but it was found not to work for them because of the level of their difficulty. That solution is not an option for these children. They have a lifelong disorder but can achieve full and active participation in education and in life if they get the help they need.
Their therapist will be absent for the remainder of the school year and these children will only have received seven weeks of therapy in the 2008-09 school year. This is an utter disgrace especially when one considers there are plenty of unemployed speech and language therapists around the country who could do this work. Instead of helping this vulnerable group of children, the Government and the HSE have chosen to assign them to exclusion and isolation. They are excluded from the help they need and also excluded from the ability to read, to learn and to participate. They are excluded from the very act of being able to communicate.
The Department of Education and Science pays to transport these children to this school for the specific purpose of getting this service but the service will not now be available in the school. What stage have we arrived at when we cannot even cover maternity leave and ensure that these children get the help they need? How can such a cruel decision be made? Two therapists in counties Laois and Offaly will go on maternity leave next week. The other person is attached to the Midland Regional Hospital in Tullamore and her leave is to be covered by a locum. What is the difference between the two? Why cannot the leave of the person in the school be covered? What happened to the supposed commitment to community care?
The Government has the opportunity to reverse this decision and the lives and futures of eight bright young people and their families depend on it. I ask the Minister of State to reverse the decision and provide these children with their full and assessed entitlement to this service.
The Minister for Finance, Deputy Lenihan, is just leaving the Chamber. He said today that he had learned from the medical cards controversy but this decision shows that he has not done so. As Minister of State in the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Moloney will be aware that a similar situation pertains for another group of children in Portlaoise who are also affected. Much of their therapist's leave fell during the summer, however, so they lost three months of therapy. This is still significant when only two years are provided.
The State will pay more for this decision in the long term in terms of the costs incurred by these children missing out. However, what they will have lost is incalculable. I hope the Minister of State will be able tell these eight families tonight that their children will get a proper speech and language therapist and that the woman who is to go on maternity leave will be able to take her leave knowing the children for whom she has worked so hard will receive proper care.
The Deputy is referring to the forthcoming maternity leave of a speech and language therapist who provides services to children in the speech and language disorder, SSLD, class in Mucklagh national school, County Offaly.
As the Deputy may be aware, an arrangement currently exists between the Department of Health and Children and the Department of Education and Science to provide school-based speech and language therapy to children via attendance at a specific speech and language disorder class. These classes are based in mainstream schools and usually have a pupil to teacher ratio of 7:1. Speech and language therapy is provided by arrangement with the Health Service Executive and the therapy delivery is integrated with the educational provision. There are currently 54 specific speech and language disorder classes in the country.
Currently the only model of intensive speech and language therapy provision available to children with specific speech language impairment, SSLI, is through attendance at a specific speech and language disorder class.
That is the problem.
Children attending such a class do so on a full-time basis, for an average of two years.
The HSE has informed the Department of Health and Children that it has consistently endeavoured to prioritise the provision of speech and language therapy to children with speech and language delay or disorders. This prioritisation of speech and language therapy is evidenced by an increase in the number of speech and language therapists employed by the HSE from 498 whole-time equivalents in December 2004 to 733 whole-time equivalents in September 2008.
Do the children in question not deserve to be prioritised?
With regard to the temporary vacancy arising in the specific case raised by the Deputy, the Health Service Executive is required to work within its current overall approved employment ceiling and the financial resources available to it. The ability of the executive to provide locum cover in this instance must be considered in that context.
The Government's cut excludes and isolates the children in question. It is pathetic.
Nursing Homes Repayment Scheme.
I thank the Ceann Comhairle for affording me the opportunity to raise this important issue on the Adjournment. Many people await a response in respect of the health repayment scheme. The issue I raise concerns a lady in my constituency, God rest her, who died on 5 January 2002. Numerous representations and requests have been made by her family and a second application form was submitted under the repayment scheme when the first form went missing.
Since the establishment of a process to make repayments, parliamentary questions submitted in 2006, 2007 and 2008 have been met with the same extraordinary response, one which I specifically reject as inconsistent and incompatible with the rules applying to the Houses of the Oireachtas. As parliamentary questions pertaining to this matter are forwarded to the Health Service Executive, Deputies do not receive a reply in the House. Instead we receive letters thanking us for our recent correspondence seeking information regarding an application and stating that data protection rules governing the repayment process are particularly strict and primarily aimed at protecting privacy. This is a load of rubbish and the suggestion that the Data Protection Act precludes the HSE from providing an answer is nothing more than an attempt to cover up inadequacies and inefficiencies.
The Data Protection Act does not apply to Members of the House as we are registered under the Act. I reject any attempt by external bodies, agencies or individuals to withhold information from the Parliament on the basis that they are prevented from supplying such information under the terms of the Data Protection Act. No such rule or regulation applies to Parliament and any attempt to subvert the activity of the Oireachtas by making a suggestion of this nature is illegal and unconstitutional.
I am sure many other people find themselves in the same position as the family of the woman in question who has made regular inquiries. An agency received a substantial amount of money to operate the repayment scheme. While I do not propose to provide a figure because it does not improve with repetition, it irritates me to receive letters suggesting I cannot be given information because the HSE is precluded from imparting such information under the Data Protection Act. This is not the case.
I ask the Minister of State to get hold of the relevant person by the scruff of the neck, give him or her a good shake and inform him or her that Deputies have had enough of this nonsense. Let us deal with the issue and pay the bills. Failing that, we should walk off the pitch.
I thank Deputy Durkan for raising this matter. I am pleased to have the opportunity to set out the position regarding the health repayment scheme.
Following consideration of the implications of the Supreme Court judgment of 16 February 2005, the Government approved a statutory based repayment scheme. The Health (Repayment Scheme) Act 2006 provides a clear legal framework to repay recoverable health charges for publicly funded long-term residential care, including contracted beds in private institutions. All those fully eligible persons who were wrongly charged for publicly funded long-term residential care and are alive will have their charges repaid in full. The estates of all those fully eligible persons who were wrongly charged for publicly funded long-term residential care and died since 9 December 1998 will have the charges repaid in full.
Recoverable health charges are charges that were imposed on persons with full eligibility under the Health (Charges for In-patient Services) Regulations 1976, as amended in 1987, or charges for inpatient services only raised under the Institutional Assistance Regulations 1954, as amended in 1965. It is only these charges which are repayable under the scheme.
The health repayment scheme was launched in August 2006 and is administered by the Health Service Executive in conjunction with the appointed scheme administrator, KPMG-McCann Fitzgerald. The scheme is progressing as speedily as possible and every effort is being made to settle claims as quickly as possible. The HSE has advised that the vast majority of offers under the scheme will have been issued by November of this year. It has also indicated that as of 10 October 2008, more than 34,500 claim forms have been received, 13,843 payments totalling more than €288 million have been processed and 18,365 offers totalling more than €344 million have been made.
The time taken to process an application under the scheme is dependent on the complexity of the application, namely, the number of institutions in which the patient resided and the availability of accurate information on the amount of repayment due. In this regard, all relevant HSE facilities, more than 350 in total, have been visited by the scheme administrator to retrieve records of payment. In addition, the HSE has been working closely with the scheme administrator to put in place the necessary protocols to facilitate the processing of any claims where there are incomplete records available on a patient's period of long-stay care or on payments made. These protocols have been developed in accordance with section 6 of the Act.
The Minister of State should not insult my intelligence by reading the rest of the reply.
I will not upset the Deputy by referring to the Data Protection Act. In regard to the specific claim raised, where the mother of the applicant was a resident in an institution who died in 2002, an application form was received by the scheme administrator in August last year and the repayment is being processed.
That was the second application.
It is expected that the claimant will receive the scheme administrator's decision in regard to the application in the coming weeks.
I ask the Minister of State to call the HSE and ask that it put an end to this nonsense.
Social Welfare Payments.
After the day we have all had, one could be forgiven, in considering the unprecedented scenes we witnessed outside the House, for believing that measures related to medical cards for those aged more than 70 years were the only major mistake in the budget. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The disability sector has been decimated by the budget. I will explain in case Deputies are not aware of some of the measures. The budget was peculiar in so far as some of the detail did not emerge until individual Ministers spoke afterwards. While the Budget Statement provided a global picture, it was only when Ministers spoke afterwards that we learned the detail of other budgetary measures.
Until now, children with special needs or a disability received the domiciliary care allowance worth €299.50 per month until the age of 16 years, at which point they automatically received the disability allowance. Under the budget, the disability allowance will increase to €204 per week, leaving a difference between the two payments of approximately €500 per month. The Government sank to a new low in this budget by providing that children with a disability or special needs will no longer automatically transfer to the disability allowance but will instead wait until they reach 18 years before receiving the payment. This will result in a reduction in payments of €7,000 per annum for each child or €14,000 for the two-year period during which, as a result of a Government decision, children between 16 and 18 years will no longer be eligible for the payment.
Teenagers with special needs have similar, if not greater, needs than other teenagers. Will the new provision be retrospective? Will the disability allowance be withdrawn from those children aged 16 or 17 years who have been in receipt of the allowance for six months or a year? This is the first time I have noted that measures have been introduced retrospectively in the budget.
Other benefits associated with the disability allowance, including eligibility for a medical card, do not attach to the domiciliary care allowance. Will the medical card be removed from people with a disability or special needs who, under the new measure, will receive the domiciliary care allowance until the age of 18 years? When people become aware of this measure, they will arrive in droves outside Leinster House. Will the entitlement to free travel also be removed for teenagers who have to travel to schools outside their parishes? In tonight's reply we will be told about the increase in funding that has been provided for the disability sector over the last number of years, but there will be no mention of what we have gained for this extra spending. Reality on the ground is that there is over a two year waiting list for occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and social skills training — if that ever existed. Early intervention is key to providing for the future of children with disabilities. For a child with disability, every day without these essential therapies is a day lost, never mind two years.
Families use the allowance provided to bypass the waiting list and seek the care and intervention necessary for their children. A cut in their allowance, €7,000 a year, will result in many children not getting the help they so urgently need, and they will not become the fully functioning adults that we had desperately hoped they would be. On RTE Radio 1 on Saturday, 18 October, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan said, "We have to protect the most vulnerable in our society, and these are the people on social welfare payments". This underhand move to withdraw payments from the very people he purported to protect is another example, along with the medical card fiasco for the over 70s, of this budget targeting the most vulnerable. It has been clear for a number of years that this Government cannot protect the sick and it is now clear that it does not want to protect the elderly or those with disabilities. The question is very clear. This particular move has to be reversed, and it will be, by force of public opinion. In the meantime, to clarify certain positions, will people who are now between 16 and 18, on disability allowance, have their allowances removed? What is to happen in relation to the medical card that normally comes with this, and the free travel pass? Is this Minister prepared to stand over that? These savings are colossal for those least able to give them up, so what is going to happen to that money?
I thank Deputy Lynch for the opportunity to set out the background and context for the changes being introduced to the disability allowance, DA, and domiciliary care allowance, DCA, schemes. The current arrangements provide that DA, a weekly payment made to persons with a disability whose employment capacity is substantially restricted by reason of his or her disability and whose means are insufficient to meet his or her needs and those of dependents, can be paid from age 16. This age limit was established in 1953 as a qualifying condition for the disabled person's maintenance allowance, DPMA, and was carried into the DA when it replaced the DPMA in 1996. It was linked to ability to work at a time when most young people would have left school by the end of 16 years to enter the workforce.
The social welfare system does not, in general, provide benefits which could be viewed as encouraging early school leaving and, accordingly, 18 is normally used as the minimum age for qualification for means-tested payments in a person's own right.
The National Federation of Voluntary Bodies is an umbrella organisation for 63 voluntary agencies which provide direct services to people with intellectual disabilities. Its members account for in excess of 85% of this country's direct service provision to people with an intellectual disability. In its submission to the Department's review of the DA, the federation argued:
At present the age for receipt of DA is 16 years. We deem this to be too young. This does not give an incentive for a child to pursue work/education options. Subsequently a child may fall into the dependency trap too early. Instead parents should receive the Domiciliary Care Allowance for the child until they are 18 years old.
The Government has decided to implement this change. The age of eligibility for entitlement to DA is being increased from 16 to 18 for new claimants only. This change will not affect existing 16 and 17 year olds on DA.
The DCA has hitherto been payable to parents of children from birth to the age of 16 who are living at home and have a severe disability requiring continual or continuous care and attention which is substantially in excess of that normally required by a child of the same age. As an alleviating measure for the change in the DA scheme, the age for entitlement to the DCA is being increased from 16 to 18 years. The Deputy will be aware that the medical card is means tested and can also be given as a discretionary card to people with severe needs — and of course, those young people may be eligible for that as well.
Parents who are caring for a disabled 16 or 17 year old on a full-time basis may also qualify for carer's benefit or carer's allowance if they are receiving the DCA. In practice, children in respect of whom DCA is in payment are deemed to require full-time care and attention, thereby satisfying one of the key conditions for receipt of carer's benefit or carer's allowance. Those who are already in receipt of one of these carers payments will, of course, continue to receive the payment.
The Deputy asked about free travel to take these young people to special schools outside the parish. Young people who are attending special schools also qualify for free travel to and from such a school. I can assure Deputy Lynch that the Government will continue to prioritise enabling young people with disabilities to reach their potential through education and access to work, while also supporting their families as carers.
Grant Payments.
As Deputies will be aware, among the cuts made in last week's budget was a decision to close off the early retirement scheme and the installation grant scheme for farmers. Overall, the allocation to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was reduced by 13%, over €210 million, with particular impact on the crucial area of research and development as, for example, with the cut of over €10 million in the Teagasc budget.
The actual size of the cut in the allocation for the two schemes I refer to is small within the context of the overall budget, but it represents a severe blow to those directly concerned. In my motion I specifically refer to those young farmers who qualified earlier this year for their farm certificate, awarded by FETAC, but whom, it would appear will not now be granted installation aid. I have details of 23 young farmers in County Kerry who are in that position. They were all informed in July that they had qualified for the certificate and assured in writing by Teagasc that the certificates would be issued to them within six weeks. I have a letter from Teagasc to the students, dated July 2008. It says:
I enclose a statement of your results in the above programme. If you have any queries about your results you should lodge an appeal, in writing, with your College Principal or Education Officer within ten working days of receipt of this letter.
Your FETAC certificate will be forward to your college or local training centre and FETAC tell us that this could take up to six weeks. The college/centre will then arrange to have it forwarded or presented to you. Please retain it carefully for future reference.
This is a letter from Teagasc certifying that these 23 young farmers, after doing a two year course, had qualified for the green certificate. That was in July, but as of yet they have not received it. Theoretically, at least, they are not now in a position to apply for installation aid and that is a major setback to young farmers starting out in life.
I also make the general point that closing the two schemes, as already mentioned, is a grave mistake. During the summer I met farmers in the west as regards the report being compiled for the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. One of the issues raised regularly is the fear that young family members will not continue to farm and that a family tradition will come to an end. Where there is no interest in taking over a farm, there is nothing anybody can do but we are talking about young men who want to farm, who have trained themselves to farm and badly need whatever aid is available to get a start. Abolishing such schemes represents a vote of no confidence in rural Ireland.
There are massive areas of potential within farming which can be tied in to the overall rural economy and farmers have been encouraged as part of the reformed CAP to examine new systems such as energy crops and other non-traditional enterprises. Therefore, to reduce the resources devoted to research and development and to discourage young people from taking up farming makes no sense. People want to continue in farming, but massive obstacles are being placed in their way. The closing of the retirement and installation schemes is yet one more such barrier.
I tabled this motion particularly on behalf of the 23 young farmers who come from all over County Kerry. As I said, it took them two years to do the course — two days a week, travelling to the Teagasc centre in Killarney, putting in a huge effort. Part of the reason for doing that is to qualify for whatever start up grants are available for young farmers. I ask the Minister to look at this. The very fact they qualified in July makes them eligible for such grants. To do otherwise would be an abnegation of all responsibility to these young people by the Department.
Is mian liom ar dtús buíochas a ghabháil leis an Teachta Ferris a thug an deis dom an rún seo a phlé. Ireland is currently experiencing a period of economic turbulence stemming from both international and domestic factors and the context for this year's budget differs very considerably from those in the past 15 years. The most recent figures from the Department of Finance show that revenue is anticipated to fall by 13% compared with the 2008 budget estimate. This shortfall highlights the precariousness of the current situation. Based on these figures, it appeared that the Government deficit would be approximately 8% next year.
This is why this Government has had to act to take remedial action over the budgetary situation by utilising prudent measures. This will ensure that the Irish economy is in a position to ride out the current economic storm and to move back to higher levels of growth in tandem with the global economy.
Some of these remedial measures relate to schemes operated by my Department, including the installation aid scheme. This scheme was established under the aegis of the National Development Plan 2000-06 and provided a grant of €9,523 to successful applicants between the ages of 18 and 35 years who set up in farming for the first time on or before 31 December 2006. Its aim was to encourage young trained people to engage in farming.
The principal requirements of the scheme were that applicants must be first set up on a holding of at least five hectares of eligible land and be between the ages of 18 and 35; generate a minimum of 20 income units from farming within 12 months of the date of set up and have a total income of at least 50 income units within two years of set-up; and complete the educational requirements within two years of set up. To date 5,377 applications have been received and 4,147 payments made totalling €38.5 million.
The installation aid scheme was replaced by the young farmers installation scheme and was introduced in June 2007 under the aegis of the 2007-13 rural development programme. It provides a higher grant level of €15,000, an increase of 58%, to farmers between the ages of 18 and 35 years who are set up in farming for the first time on or after 1 January 2007.
The principal requirements of this scheme are that applicants must generate a minimum of five production units from farming at the time of first setting up or within 12 months of that date; fulfil, within two years of first setting up on the farm the educational requirements of the scheme; submit and complete a business plan; obtain title-leasehold title to at least 15 hectares of eligible lands in less favoured areas or 20 hectares in other areas; and have not more than €50,000 in non-farm income in a designated tax year. Since the launch of the young farmers installation scheme in June 2007, 983 applications have been received under the scheme and 311 payments made totalling €4.7 million. All commitments entered into under the young farmers installation scheme up to and including 14 October 2008, budget day, will be honoured by my Department.
On the specific point raised by the Deputy, the scheme includes a wide range of educational certificates available to determine eligibility. An applicant has two years from date of set up to complete the agricultural experience and training requirements of the scheme. It is recognised that it may take some time to be presented with the actual certificate from the awarding body. In such cases, Teagasc or the awarding body can confirm achievement of the award thus ensuring the applicant can be paid. The young farmers installation scheme is fairly broad in the number of awards that it recognises towards eligibility.
I also emphasise that a number of farm tax measures were renewed in budget 2009. These are part of a number of schemes and reliefs that have been put in place in recent years to bring about improvements in land mobility that will, in turn, improve productivity and efficiency, particularly for young farmers.
These reliefs include the renewal of stamp duty relief for four years until 31 December 2012, worth an estimated €53 million in a full year; the renewal of stamp duty relief for farm consolidation for two years from 1 July 2009 to 31 June 2011; the renewal of both the general and the young trained farmers rates of stock relief for a further two years, estimated cost to the Exchequer of €2 million in a full year; and the extension of the accelerated capital allowance for necessary farm pollution control facilities from 31 December 2008 to the 31 December 2010, worth an estimated €10 million in a full year.
When combined these farm tax measures are estimated to be worth over €65 million in a full year. In addition, the top rate of stamp duty on agricultural land transactions is being reduced with effect from 15 October. This should reduce the cost of agricultural land to purchasers and encourage a higher number of transactions. All these measures will help young farmers to improve land mobility, increase land swaps and attain higher environmental standards.
I want to confirm to the Deputy that payments under the scheme will be made to an applicant who has met the education and training requirements provided that the other criteria of the scheme are met.
Ar deireadh, má tá litir nó eolas ag an dTeachta Ferris maidir le cás nó cásanna faoi leith, gheobhaidh mé freagra dó, má thugann sé an t-eolas sin dom. I wish to be of assistance and if there are specific details which I did not have when the matter was tabled, I would like to get them in order that I can give the Deputy a more detailed reply.
The Dáil adjourned at 9.55 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 23 October 2008.