Ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire go dtí an Teach seo. Caithfidh mé mo dhícheall a dhéanamh cúpla focal a rá i mo theanga féin sa tseachtain atá againn. Seo í an chéad uair dom a bheith sa suíochán seo agus is mór an onóir dom é.
Adjournment Matters
Social Welfare Benefits
Comhghairdeas leat.
Go raibh maith agat. Déanfaidh mé mo dhícheall.
I congratulate the Acting Chairman on his new position. As this is the first occasion on which I have raised a matter on the Adjournment, I am not familiar with the procedure involved. Would it be possible for Senator Moran to also contribute in respect of this matter?
The Senator can give Senator Moran a minute or two of her time.
May we share time?
Yes. Is it agreed that the Senators may share time? Agreed.
I thank the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, for coming to the House to take this matter. As she will be aware, parents who have children with special needs are extremely anxious with regard to the reviews taking place in respect of domiciliary care allowance. The current state of the nation has driven fear into the hearts of those who are dependent on the income they obtain in the form of this allowance, which assists them in caring for their children. In 2011, 402 cases were reviewed and the allowance was cut in respect of 198 of these. The Minister will appreciate that when parents receive a letter relating to the review, it is a cause of some concern.
Applications for domiciliary care allowance are reviewed without the medical assessors involved meeting the relevant children or their parents. An assessment is based on the medical evidence submitted by a doctor and it does not take account of the additional care and attention parents must give their children on a daily basis. Will the Minister indicate why medical reviews are required in respect of children with lifelong illnesses such as Down's syndrome, cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy, to name but a few, particularly as these conditions are not going to improve? In the carer's allowance section, files are marked "Not for medical review". Perhaps this could also apply in respect of children who have lifelong illnesses and diseases and who are in receipt of domiciliary care allowance.
It is very disappointing to see so many children with autism being reassessed and being considered so improved that their needs are no greater than those of any other child. I have met many parents with children who are autistic and my heart goes out to them. I have great admiration for those parents because while their children may look perfect, their behaviour is not. These parents have difficulty even finding people to mind their children because many babysitters do not want to take on the problem. It is a vicious circle for the parents to whom I refer, who are obliged to fight the system at every turn in order to ensure the best care and education for their children. They are again fighting the State and trying to get it to accept that their children require additional special care.
I am sure the parents of children with autism would be absolutely delighted if their children's needs were not any greater than those of other children of the same age. They would accept such a development any day in place of the domiciliary care allowance. Unfortunately, that is not how things are for them. Any child with autism, regardless of how mild it might be, needs extra care. I have dealt with people whose appeals have been turned down and I am aware that if substantial medical evidence had been submitted at the outset, they would not have been obliged to undergo the appeals process.
I ask the Minister to extend the review period for the domiciliary care allowance in order to give parents time to obtain proper medical evidence from consultants, psychologists, therapists or others who are responsible for continually monitoring their children's progress. If this happened, medical assessors might not be so quick to discontinue people's allowances. Each day the newspapers carry stories about parents who are suffering because their children, as a result of autism and other illnesses, are causing problems. These people are being informed that their children do not require extra care.
I request that the Minister exercise her good nature and review the position on the domiciliary care allowance. At the very least she might consider extending the period in which medical evidence can be submitted.
I welcome the Minister and echo the sentiments expressed by Senator Moloney. As the Senator pointed out, large numbers of people have lost their domiciliary care allowance this year. It is difficult for the parents of children with special needs to complete and return a form which requires the provision of extremely detailed information in just 21 days. Most of these parents' days are taken up in caring for their children. This is particularly the case if they have jobs and if they are also obliged to care for their other children. The current timeframe within which people are expected to return the forms to which I refer is not adequate and, like Senator Moloney, I ask that the Minister consider extending it.
Parents whose domiciliary care allowance has been cut in the past year have been left floundering. I spoke to a number of people who lost the €309 per month they received in the form of the allowance and discovered that their children cannot go swimming or access some of the services previously available to them. As Senator Moloney pointed out, many of the conditions with which the children in question are suffering will never improve. It can be extremely upsetting for parents if they and their children are obliged to undergo the trauma of the review process and if they then have their allowances discontinued.
Ba mhaith liom comhghairdeas a dhéanamh leis an Seanadóir as bheith sa suíochán sin. Is mór an onóir dom a bheith ag caint anseo inniu ar an chéad lá don Seanadóir a bheith ann.
I welcome the comments made by Senators Moloney and Moran in respect of this important issue. In the first instance I understand the concerns that parents and guardians have been expressing in recent months.
Domiciliary care allowance is paid to over 24,000 parents and guardians in respect of 26,000 children. The approximate cost in this regard in 2011 was €100 million, with the accompanying respite care grant costing a further €45 million. As the Senators will be aware, some parents are also in receipt of carer's allowance in respect of their children. In addition, the Department makes an extensive range of payments to support families with children. In 2011, some €2.08 billion was paid out in the form of child benefit in respect of 1.13 million children. Qualified child increases were also paid to people on social welfare payments in respect of some 495,000 children.
Domiciliary care allowance is a monthly payment to the parent or guardian of a child with a disability so severe that he or she requires care and attention and-or supervision substantially in excess of that which would be given to another child of the same age. This care and attention must be provided to allow the child to deal with the activities of daily living. The child must be likely to require this level of care and attention for at least 12 months. Domiciliary care allowance cases are routinely reviewed to ensure that the conditions for receipt of the payment continue to be met. Cases are reviewed based on either, one, a scheduled review based on the recommendation of the medical assessor when the claim is initially processed — I emphasise that assessments in respect of domiciliary care allowance are medically based on the advice available from the child's and parents' medical doctors and experts and on the medical experts in the Department of Social Protection who then review medical evidence that has been put forward — or, two, on the basis of information received about a change of circumstances which potentially affects the continued entitlement of a case already in payment.
Scheduled reviews, on the recommendation of the medical assessor, are based on the prognosis of the child's disability and how his or her condition may improve over time. The review interval will vary from 12 months in cases where the child's disability is likely to improve significantly in the short term to a five or ten-year review date if the child's condition is likely to remain unchanged for the foreseeable future. In circumstances where a child has a lifelong disability that is unlikely to improve by any significant degree, a "do not review again" status may be used.
Domiciliary care allowance reviews are initiated with the parent-guardian being asked to complete a "review of medical criteria form", which I want to emphasise, which also requires medical input from the child's GP. The parent returns this form together with any additional recent reports of ongoing medical or therapeutic services the child may be receiving. This information is then sent for review by one of the Department's medical assessors who will provide an opinion to the deciding officer on whether the child still meets the medical criteria for receipt of the payment. The decision of the deciding officer is communicated to the customer in writing and he or she is given the option to appeal to the social welfare appeals office. Any new or additional information received after the issue of the revised decision and before the appeal is heard is further assessed by a medical assessor. In this way the review process affords parents-guardians every opportunity to provide additional information and to have this information assessed at an early stage with payment restored, where necessary, in advance of an appeal hearing.
I very much welcome this topic being raised. I have heard the concerns of parents and guardians in recent months regarding the domiciliary care allowance review process. Up to now 21 days has been allowed for the return of the completed review form and supporting documentation, with flexibility allowed where some additional time is needed to obtain specific reports. However, following a review of the 21-day timescale, it has been decided to extend this to 60 days and also to inform the parents-guardians when their payment is initially awarded of the review date that will apply to their child's case.
That is good.
It is very important that parents understand and that they are communicated with as early as possible about conditionality, reviews and so on. This will I hope address the concerns of parents and guardians regarding the timeframe allowed and will provide them with additional time to gather supporting documentation or medical reports they may wish to submit in advance of the review date.
In addition to this, the Department will now write to claimants two to three months in advance of the formal review date and then give them 60 days in which to submit relevant additional information. That should provide for a much better system of communication and knowledge for the parents of the process. At present when domiciliary care allowance is being awarded, there is no indication given as to when the claim will be reviewed.
The Department took over the domiciliary care allowance from the HSE in 2009. Like many issues in the Department of Social Protection, there is a huge changeover taking place in the system. From now on, the Department will include a line in the awarding letter that the claim will be reviewed in, say, two, three or five years time and that the Department will be in touch closer to that time regarding information that will be required.
I hope that parents and guardians can be assured that the Department is committed to ensuring that those children who meet the conditions for the scheme will continue to receive the payment.
I thank the Minister for her reply. It is welcome news that she is willing to extend the timeframe for the return of the review form by up to 60 days. I know from working with people that it takes quite a while to get a letter from a consultant. If one contacts a consultant's secretary it can take that length of time to get the required letter.
Under the appeals process, can people go for a physical medical examination and meet the medical referee, as applies in the case of disability appeals in the Department? I am not aware of anyone who was granted such a medical. It would do no harm for the medical assessors to meet the child and his or her parents and listen to what they have to say because sometimes what is noted on paper does not give a true reading of what is happening.
I reiterate that children with autism are being severely hit in this respect. I hope that the medical assessors in the Minister's Department will take on board how difficult it is for parents to cope with a child with autism, regardless of how mild or severe it is. I hope the Minister will revert to the medical assessors on the points we have raised on this issue.
In regard to the suggestion by some of the advocacy groups that children with autism have a lower rate of success than children with other disabilities, this is not the case. I am aware there may be such a perception among some of the advocacy groups that children with mild intellectual disabilities are unfairly assessed in the domiciliary allowance care process and that they are more likely to have their claim disallowed. The statistics indicate that this is not true. Overall the success rate for claims relating to intellectual versus physical disability is very similar.
I stress that eligibility for the allowance is not based primarily on the medical or psychological condition but on the resulting lack of function of body or mind necessitating the degree of extra care and attention required. Each application is assessed on an individual basis taking account of the evidence submitted. In addition, the person claiming allowance for the child must be providing for the care of the child and must be considered habitually resident in the State. Overall approximately 46% of all claims are awarded the allowance and the success rate does not vary to any significant degree between claims relating to an intellectual or physical disability.
I have heard the suggestion made by some individuals that the Department's medical assessors should carry out the assessment personally in regard to the child. People would need to think long and hard about that. There would need to be consultation with the groups. I remind Members that responsibility for disability payments was transferred from the HSE to the Department of Social Protection because it was seen very much as an income support. The number of people who have been awarded disability invalidity and children's domiciliary care allowance has grown very significantly since responsibility for those payments were transferred.
If the Senator is suggesting that rather than the child's medical advisers, medical attendants, consultants and other advisers presenting the reports on the child who is their patient, all that work would be, as it were, done again by the Department, she would be probably be suggesting a model where one would go back to the HSE because the Department would not be resourced to do that. The Senator is talking about a very profound change. One presumes children as well would be more comfortable with their own medical experts, their own GP, and the various experts who work with the child and who then make a professional report. The Department has a stakeholders group involving disability organisations and parents of children with a disability. The subject would need to be given extremely detailed consideration.
The Minister might have misunderstood me. I said that the medical assessor could meet the children during the appeal process. The claim would not have been turned down and the case would not be appealed if all of the forms submitted by psychologists, consultants and GPs were considered good enough. I meant that the medical assessor would meet with the child during the appeal process, not during the application process.
I wish to make a brief observation. Many defective applications are being made to the Department, through no fault of the applicants. They just do not know the criteria the Minister has set out and the complications of the system. The Minister indicated that it is not a medical test for the domiciliary care allowance in full, it is a functional one. That is a problem across Departments. Most people that have come to my office who have been refused the allowance have defective applications. There is no way they would have got approval even though they deserve it because of what is contained in the form. I do not know that can be done about that because it is a resource issue. Education for Members initially on the various benefits and the criteria for them would be a help.
We must move to a model which emphasises the delivery of services because that is where the gap is, as so many parents require specialist services which is what they have difficulty in accessing.
Planning Issues
On behalf of Fianna Fáil, I welcome what the Minister outlined today. I must refer to the Slane bypass, another issue of life and death. I welcome the Minister to the House. She is a most respected Minister. However, while I respect her I would prefer to see her constituency colleague, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, DeputyVaradkar. He is obviously not available. That is no disrespect to the Minister, Deputy Burton. I am disappointed that he is not present because he said this morning on the radio that he is not prepared to meet residents in Slane either.
We all know what happened yesterday. Following on from the decision on the children's hospital, An Bord Pleanála has turned down an application by the State to build a bypass of Slane in County Meath. It has generally been agreed by people in the area, their elected representatives and successive Governments, that a bypass is required as an urgent matter of health and safety, life and death for the people of Slane village.
Unfortunately, An Bord Pleanála turned down the application on a number of grounds. I urge the Minister, the National Roads Authority, NRA, and Meath County Council to at the very least obtain legal advice on the pursuance of a judicial review into the decision. An Bord Pleanála has taken over the role of the Minister and the NRA on roads policy in terms of deciding whether a road is needed. It has taken into account aspects of the county development plan on Brú na Bóinne while ignoring specific objectives of said plan on the bypass of Slane. It allowed a bridge — a Senator suggested it should be the Mary McAleese bridge — to run right through the Brú na Bóinne site over where the battle of the Boyne took place and there was not a word about that, but now when health and safety is an issue at Slane, An Bord Pleanála has seen things differently.
It does not give confidence in the planning process when public projects are turned down while other private projects and various atrocities over the years have been approved by An Bord Pleanála. I urge the Minister to at least consider that. It is important that he does. He referred to a 90-day, three-month consultation period between the NRA and the various parties. If he waits three months it will be too late for a judicial review due to the tight timelines.
A number of other measures must be implemented as a matter of severe urgency. I call on the Minister to contact the Garda Commissioner about traffic in Slane. Last night on the news at 9 p.m. one could see lorry after lorry clearly breaching the speed limit in the village of Slane. It was outrageous to see that on television; multiple lorries breaching the speed limit and making a mockery of the 30 km/h speed limit that had been put in place in Slane to protect the safety and lives of people. I urge the Garda to take the issue seriously and to install speed cameras. I urge the Government to use whatever powers of persuasion it has over the Garda to ask it to prioritise enforcement. I also call for the introduction of measures from funds at the Minister's disposal to further alleviate traffic in Slane. The Minister must not waste the momentum and the money that has been spent in recent years on the planning application by simply abandoning the project. I am concerned by today's comments from the NRA that An Bord Pleanála has suggested a bypass might never be built. The NRA is correct in its interpretation but it added that we must accept the decision. I do not accept the decision. The Government must consider a judicial review in this case. I ask the Minister to at the very least consider it within the time limits that apply.
I thank Senator Byrne for staying within his allocated time.
We are all behaving because the Senator is Acting Chairman. I thank Senator Byrne for giving me with the opportunity to explain the circumstances surrounding the recent decision of An Bord Pleanála on the proposal to bypass Slane village. I am responding on behalf of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar, who regrets that he is unable to attend. He asked me to express his regrets to Senator Byrne.
I understand the extreme disappointment of residents from the Slane area because of the An Bord Pleanála decision. I acknowledge that the current situation is dangerous and that there is heavy congestion. I know the road and the area well and at times it is terrifying. This scheme was intended to divert traffic away from Slane's original stone bridge and the steep approaches to it from both sides, which has been a factor in a number of road traffic accidents. In particular, there are road safety concerns about the use of this route by heavy goods vehicles.
The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport has responsibility for overall policy and funding on the national roads programme. The planning and design of individual national primary and secondary roads is a statutory function of the NRA under the Roads Acts 1993 to 2007. The NRA works closely with the local authority in whose administrative area the road is to be constructed, in this case Meath County Council.
An Bord Pleanála refused the scheme on a number of grounds, including that it was not satisfied that the alternatives to the bypass were properly considered, given that the bypass would be near Brú na Bóinne — a UNESCO world heritage site. In particular, it did not believe that a HGV ban in Slane was adequately considered.
The Minister has asked the NRA, in conjunction with Meath County Council and the relevant stakeholders, to examine the detail of the An Bord Pleanála decision and how to respond to it. As the decision was only released by An Bord Pleanála yesterday, it will take time for a detailed considered response to emerge from either organisation. The Minister has requested this is to be done within 90 days. However, it is not a case of selecting a new route at this stage. An Bord Pleanála did not reject the route chosen or suggest that another route would have received permission, instead the priority is to address the traffic safety concerns in Slane. Returning to An Bord Pleanála would only be possible if it could be clearly shown that traffic management in Slane was not possible and there was no alternative to the bypass.
A ban on HGV's through Slane is an issue for Meath County Council to address. Much work has been carried out on safety upgrades and traffic calming on the approaches to the bridge and, thankfully, traffic accidents have significantly reduced. Everyone who uses the route is aware of the issues.
I am pleased the Minister described the road as "terrifying", which is the case. It is gratifying that this has been acknowledged. Everyone knows that. I am astounded by the volume of comments on my Facebook page in recent days. People referred to their fear on the road and how they must constantly look through the rear-view mirror. I wondered why I did not experience that myself. The reason is because I avoid the road as much as possible. I use alternative routes if I can avoid the road. I hardly ever drive down the hill.
I am disappointed at the response. It appears that the NRA and the Minister are putting up their hands and accepting the defeat. If the shoe were on the other foot and the road were approved, one could bet one's life that the objectors would go straight down to the High Court. In looking for a response from the council and the NRA within 90 days, the Minister is, in effect, ruling out a High Court challenge because there is an eight week time limit on planning cases. That is most unfortunate. I urge the Minister to reconsider. At the very least he should consider going to the High Court. I do not say we should drop everything and run down there now but at least get the legal advice and do it within the time because there are serious issues with this judgment and if I were a Minister I would not want An Bord Pleanála deciding roads policy. That is not its function. The function of the board is planning and it has raised some planning issues, but it has also raised issues to do with roads policy in stating that a bypass should not be built unless all of the alternative options are examined. As someone said, a precedent appears to have been set in this regard in that if a tolled road is located parallel to a village it will not get approval for a bypass from An Bord Pleanála. That is not a planning matter. It is a matter for democratic decision making.
I am trying to highlight to the Garda the necessity for enforcement in this regard and would like the National Roads Authority to do that also. We will keep up the pressure from this side of the House. Everybody is agreed on the need for this bypass. I accept the Minister will issue a response soon but I would like to see even more urgency on this issue.
The Seanad adjourned at 4.45 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 13 March 2012.