Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 20 February 2024
510. Deputy Pauline Tully asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the total number of residential places as of December 2023; the number of these that were planned and the number that were emergency placements; the total cost of providing an additional planned residential place; and the total cost of providing an additional emergency residential place. [8022/24]
View answerI wish to thank the Deputy for raising this question.
The Deputy will likely be aware that the industrial action by certain Fórsa grades in the HSE that commenced on Friday 6th October 2023 has been suspended.
The HSE has indicated that they have recommenced operations as normal, but there is a significant backlog in the gathering of demographic information such as the data requested. My Department is providing data from September 2023, which is the latest available data on the number of residential places provided for people with a disability.
Residential services make up the largest part of the Disability funding disbursed by the HSE - 58% of the total budget. Approximately 90 service providers provide residential services to over 8,300 individuals throughout the country.
By the end of September 2023, 8,355 residential places were provided.
A number of new Priority (emergency) residential places have been added to the residential base, which results in a capacity increase. However, it is important to note that residential capacity in the system can be reduced. When residents of congregated settings sadly pass away, their places are not ordinarily re-utilised. This is in keeping with Government policy which is to move away from institutionalised settings (i.e. Time to Move On from Congregate Settings).
The idea behind ‘planned residential’ is to support service providers to plan for the development of a house that will accommodate four people rather than single places, which tend to be more expensive. The design and build and/or purchase and refurbishment of a minimum 4 bedroom residence with ancillary requirements per Health and Safety requirements and HIQA registration cost is market dependent and is estimated between €650k to €950k per residence.
There is a minimum level of support needed in any residential facility. Based on the support needs of service users identified on HSE’s DSMAT list, the weighted average cost is just over €250,000 based on the needs profile of this group. Please see table below:
|
Support need |
Annual Unit Cost €m (2022) |
|
Low to medium |
174,000 |
|
High |
233,000 |
|
Intensive |
307,000 |
|
Weighted average |
253,000 |
By the end of September 2023, 103 Priority 1 (Emergency) places. The revenue funding requirements associated with these placements would be based on an average cost of range of €300,000 to €330,000 per annum. This is based on the average cost range of placements provided in 2023.
The HSE have informed me that remaining data for 2023 may become available towards the end of February / beginning of March.
