Vol. 567 No. 1
348 Mr. Boyle asked the Minister for Health and Children the measures being taken within his Department to recognise and provide sufficient resources to deal with dual diagnosis of those with mild-borderline intellectual disability. [13834/03]
The report of the review group on mental handicap services, Needs and Abilities which was published in 1991, recommended that the majority of persons with a mild level of intellectual disability or general learning difficulties as described in the report, should not be referred to the intellectual disability services, but should access generic health and other support services as appropriate. While a number of persons within this group may have additional needs which require some specialist support from the intellectual disability services, this would be a small proportion of this population as a whole. The development of services to meet their needs would be part of the overall development of services for this population group.
Additional revenue funding of more than €200 million has been given to services for persons with an intellectual disability and those with autism since 1997 and is built into the ongoing budget base. The additional funding provided by this and the previous Government between 2000 and 2002 was used to put in place, in addition to a range of other services, more than 900 new residential, 380 new respite and around 2,000 new day places for people with an intellectual disability and those with autism.
