Written Answers - Services for People with Disabilities.
Richard Bruton
Ceist:
273
Mr. R. Bruton
asked the
Minister for Health and Children
the number of new residential places for persons with an intellectual disability which have been funded by his Department for the Dublin area in each of the past five years; the corresponding waiting list for residential placement in each of the five years; and his estimate of the need for additional residential places over the coming five years if the growing needs are to be satisfied.
[9638/03]
The following is the number of new residential places for persons with an intellectual disability in respect of which funding has been provided by my Department to the Eastern Health Board/Eastern Regional Health Authority.
|
Year
|
Number of New Places Provided
|
|
1998
|
72 (would have included some respite places)
|
|
1999
|
75
|
|
2000
|
222
|
|
2001
|
184
|
|
2002
|
57
|
My Department is collating the information requested by the Deputy in relation to the numbers awaiting residential placements during the period mentioned above and it will be forwarded under separate cover to him.
The 2001 report from the national intellectual disability database is currently with the printers and will be published within the next few weeks. The 2002 report will be available by early summer.
The annual report is compiled from the regional datasets provided by the Eastern Regional Health Authority and the health boards. Due to a delay in the submission of one regional dataset, it was not possible to compile the information which forms the basis for the annual report. This was the case in relation to both 2001 and 2002.
In April 2000, information from the national intellectual disability database indicated that in the period 2000 to 2004, 1,711 new residential places were required to meet the identified needs for these services.
While the impact of the 2000 development programme is reflected in the 2001 data, there are still a significant number of persons seeking residential services in particular. The 2002 data, which will reflect the impact of the 2001 development programme is currently being collated and validated.
Despite the very significant investment in services in recent years, demographic factors are contributing to growing waiting lists for residential services in particular, even though the number of people in receipt of services, including full time residential services, continues to increase. The increased birth rate in the 1960s and 1970s has resulted in large numbers of adults in their late 20s and early 30s requiring full-time residential services. In addition, people with an intellectual disability are living longer than previously, adding to the need for services compared to previous generations. A review of the waiting lists between 1997 and 1999, conducted by the Health Research Board and published in the 1999 annual report from the national intellectual disability database, showed that while 269 people from the original waiting list of 1,439 received full time residential services in the period, the waiting list had grown by an additional 238 places, i.e. 507 had joined the waiting list in the period. This has also been the international experience in service provision to this population.
