Vol. 404 No. 8
2 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Health whether his attention has been drawn to the recent reports which indicate that the Eastern Health Board alone need £11.5 million in 1991 to deal with priority cases in need of mental handicap services; and if he will make a statement on the adequacy of his £1 million allocation.
59 Mrs. Barnes asked the Minister for Health whether his attention has been drawn to the recent reports which indicate that the Eastern Health Board alone needs £11.5 million in 1991 to deal with priority cases in need of mental handicap services; and if he will make a statement on the adequacy of his £1 million allocation.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 2 and 59 together.
I am aware of the reports referred to but, first, I would like to say that funding to mental handicap agencies directly funded by my Department has increased in real terms and is now 40 per cent higher than it was in 1986.
This year's allocation to these agencies is 6 per cent higher than in 1990. Last year the Government provided an additional allocation of £2 million in the budget for the mentally handicapped and this provided 170 new residential places, 442 day places, respite care services for 66 families and 25 staff for other supports. This provision has been repeated this year and in addition the Government have allocated a further £1 million in the budget so that we may continue the improvements we carried out in the past year.
Would the Minister not agree that his £1 million provision is less than three-quarters of 1 per cent of the budget for mental handicap and that there is no hope in the wide earthly world that that is adequate to deal with the estimated 1,000 people waiting for residential places, the 1,000 people waiting for places in day centres? Would he not further agree that the treatment for mental handicap patients is chronic at present with fewer than half the parents getting an opportunity for a respite break?
I accept that there are gaps in the service and indeed it is one of the services where there have been gaps for a long number of years. Because of that I have ensured that over the past five budgets they would be well protected and as I have pointed out to the Deputy there has been a 40 per cent increase in their allocation, they received £58 million in 1986 and £81.6 million in 1991——
We are not talking about history, but the coming year.
——plus the improvements in the budget last year and the improvements arising out of the budget this year. The Deputy will be aware that there are massive sums of money involved in the Programme for Economic and Social Progress which will be targeted at community services, and the mentally handicapped are specifically mentioned as a group who will benefit to a very large extent from this programme. Unfortunately it is not possible to fill all the gaps.
Would the Minister agree that his allocation is not going to make any impact on the existing waiting lists that there will be massive and accelerated growth in the future in the numbers looking for these places and that the provision he has made will only make the waiting lists longer?
I do not agree that it will make no difference, for example, out of our existing allocation before we got any money in the budget this year we had decided that we were going to open a large number of places in Cheeverstown. That is progress.
