I thank the Cathaoirleach for selecting my matter for discussion on the Adjournment. I call on the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Cowen, to allocate the necessary funds to the Western Health Board to provide a comprehensive service for the treatment of people with autism in County Roscommon. I tabled this matter following a public meeting which I and the Cathaoirleach attended in Castlereagh, County Roscommon last Monday night where the need to provide a service for people with autism in the county was outlined to public representatives and others.
At present a service is being provided in Strokestown by a dedicated group, which set up the service under the EU STARR initiative. It is most successful and deals with up to eight people with autism. The group's concern is that the project is funded only until December and there is no commitment for funding after that date. The group is using a leased property and it wants to know in good time the arrangements for 2000 so it can enter a further contract with the owner of the property and continue to provide the service.
I tabled the matter to ensure that the Minister is aware in good time of the difficulty facing this group which is providing a wonderful service for people with autism in Strokestown. The Western Health Board should be in a position to inform the group in the near future of the funding that will be made available to it for next year. It will be too late to give this information to the group in the autumn or later in the year. The group must know what finance will be made available to it in good time to ensure that the current arrangements can continue and it can enter new contracts.
The programme has a total cost of just over £200,000, involving personnel costs of approximately £90,000 and non-pay items of approximately £116,000. The personnel element is kept to a minimum and involves a project leader, two supervisors, a nurse, a driver and a clerical officer. The costs also include PRSI payments, giving a total of £87,000. On the non-pay side, the cost of drugs, utilities, the bus lease, motoring, telephone and office expenses, subsistence and travel and other items such as teaching equipment amounts to £116,000. It will take just over £200,000 to provide this service for people with autism in the Strokestown area. I consider this a small sum and see no reason for the Department of Health and Children not to inform the Western Health Board that it will allocate the necessary funds to it, which in turn will distribute them to the Brothers of Charity who administer this programme in Strokestown.
However, that is not the full story regarding the treatment of people with autism in County Roscommon. Only eight people are catered for in that centre. Approximately 35 people need treatment for autism in County Roscommon. I have asked the Brothers of Charity, who hope to put together a programme for people with autism in the county, for a costing and projections. They informed me that to cover the whole county they would need an additional £330,000. That money would cover important personnel – they would need a social worker, a psychologist and a speech therapist. Those three disciplines are basic to any programme to treat people with autism. They are keeping to the basic minimum. On the non-pay side they mentioned establishing a residential and day centre with administrative back-up and updates etc.
I reiterate that this matter has two parts. First, I seek a statement from the Department that adequate funds will be provided to the Brothers of Charity to continue the service in Strokestown after December this year. Second, I want the Department of Health and Children to investigate providing funding for a facility and treatment for people with autism in the whole county and I have put forward the figures for that.
I checked the existing position with the Western Health Board and what I found out was disturbing. Counties Galway and Mayo have programmes to deal with autism on a county basis, but the third county covered by the Western Health Board has no such programme. The total allocation from the Western Health Board for the treatment of autism in County Roscommon in 1999 was meagre £8,000 while over £500,000 was provided to the other two counties. That is a great injustice. We cannot have two counties taking all the money while one county is left without any money. County Roscommon has had to resort under its own initiative to setting up a programme with EU funding. Without that the county would have no programme for people with autism.
People in County Roscommon who suffer from autism are being neglected by the State and the health board as money is not being provided. Local people have provided a programme on their own initiative using EU funding but that will be gone in December. I ask for that money to be substituted with money from the Department paid through the Western Health Board to the Brothers of Charity who will administer it.
I want funding for a programme for people with autism in County Roscommon included in the overall funding of the Western Health Board for 2000. I also want people in County Roscommon to be given treatment equal to that which people in the other two counties in the Western Health Board area receive.
I hope I have made my position on the matter clear. I gave a commitment at a public meeting to have this matter debated in the Seanad. The Cathaoirleach was at that meeting and he has graciously allowed me to raise the matter and I thank him for it. I know he supports it totally. The programme is in his home town of Strokestown and he is well aware of it. He knows the people administering it and he fully supports what I am attempting to achieve. I hope the Minister will convey the wishes of the group and the parents and relatives of people with autism in County Roscommon to his Department. I hope the better deal we seek will be addressed by his Department in the coming weeks and months.
