Liam Quaide
Cork East · Social Democrats · Ireland
“The Department is not funding the teams. That is the main issue. There is a stark double standard here. In mainstream CAMHS, multidisciplinary staffing is treated as basic good practice.”
“I already established, earlier this year, that the staffing levels of CAMHS-ID teams across the country are abysmal. These are children and teenagers with very complex needs. They experience major challenges across all aspects of their daily lives, including with communication and learning.”
“I ask about CAMHS-ID services, which are specialist teams for children and adolescents with a moderate to profound intellectual disability and coexisting mental health difficulties. According to the HSE, and by its own admission, no CAMHS-ID team nationally is staffed to the level recommended in its own model of care.”
“This is a particularly vulnerable cohort of young people, and the lack of investment is particularly stark. The Minister of State should not look at me with an expression of incredulity because we have seen this across primary care and in child, adult and older adult mental health services. This is all out in the public domain.”
“Their needs are often more complex than those of young people attending standard CAMHS. I am asking the Minister of State for a clear commitment. When will the Government move beyond small, incremental additions year by year and fully fund CAMHS-ID teams in every region? When will that happen?”
“Worried, anxious, fearful, angry, afraid, powerless, terrified, scared, overwhelmed, abandoned, hopeless. Words like these came up again and again in a survey the Social Democrats conducted in the run-up to this motion.”
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“Their needs are often more complex than those of young people attending standard CAMHS. I am asking the Minister of State for a clear commitment. When will the Government move beyond small, incremental additions year by year and fully fund CAMHS-ID teams in every region? When will that happen?”
“The Department is not funding the teams. That is the main issue. There is a stark double standard here. In mainstream CAMHS, multidisciplinary staffing is treated as basic good practice. In CAMHS, there is meant to be consultant psychiatry, psychology, social work, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy, but we know the CAMHS-ID services are patchy and understaffed. In some areas, they are non-existent. Some services are operating with little more than a psychiatrist, with limited or no access to occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, social work, psychology, nursing and family supports. The north Kerry CAMHS review showed the devastating consequences when children with intellectual disabilities are left exposed to an over-medicalised model of care. These are among the most vulnerable children in the State.”
“This is a particularly vulnerable cohort of young people, and the lack of investment is particularly stark. The Minister of State should not look at me with an expression of incredulity because we have seen this across primary care and in child, adult and older adult mental health services. This is all out in the public domain. Unless there is sustained public and media focus on this, I fear these children and families will continue to be left waiting because the Government responds to pressure, not need.”
“I already established, earlier this year, that the staffing levels of CAMHS-ID teams across the country are abysmal. These are children and teenagers with very complex needs. They experience major challenges across all aspects of their daily lives, including with communication and learning. Some have physical and sensory needs, as well as significant mental health difficulties. Yet, the specialist service meant to support them has been funded at less than half of what the HSE says is required. We need to be clear that the under-resourcing of these teams is not a question of vacancies or difficulty recruiting clinicians. It is a clear case of the Government not even funding the service to anywhere near the level that is required. That pattern of under-resourcing is pervasive across mental health services.”
“I ask about CAMHS-ID services, which are specialist teams for children and adolescents with a moderate to profound intellectual disability and coexisting mental health difficulties. According to the HSE, and by its own admission, no CAMHS-ID team nationally is staffed to the level recommended in its own model of care. Will the Minister of State set out the current number of approved CAMHS-ID posts, broken down by discipline and team, the number of new posts approved in 2026, the shortfall against the model of care, and the timeline for ensuring that every CAMHS-ID team is fully staffed?”
“Meanwhile, for-profit companies are in a position to build up substantial property portfolios while long-standing not-for-profit providers are left trying to patch services together year on year. We need to see a full plan from the Government, with timelines, funding, accountability and a clear path away from crisis-led provision. It is important to say that this motion responds to one crisis, that of adults with an intellectual disability, often living with ageing parents, with no secure plan for the future. Today we are asking Government to face that crisis robustly, not with another strategy in the distance or soothing rhetoric about how great disabled people and their families are, but with the urgency, seriousness and leadership that families have been waiting years to see.”
“Its CEO, Siobhán Bryan, told the Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters in February that the Muiríosa Foundation was reliant on the private rental market for 46 of its 142 residential properties. It may spend tens of thousands of euro bringing its properties up to HIQA standards, and then potentially lose all of that investment if a landlord decides to sell. This is the predicament of many other service providers. This is one of the reasons service providers need multi-annual funding. Not only is there an immense human cost to the current fragmented, reactive system where residents may lose their home at the whim of a landlord, but the system makes no financial sense either.”
“They cannot develop services and they cannot plan for the future under the current year-on-year model. We have drifted into an expensive crisis-led model. The proportion of residential placements provided by for-profit companies has approximately doubled from around 7% in 2022 to over 15% in the latest figures. That did not happen because of a clear rights-based strategy. It happened because the State failed to build enough planned public and not-for-profit capacity. An example shared by the Muiríosa Foundation captures the absurdity of the current system. The Muiríosa Foundation is a respected not-for-profit provider operating across a wide geographical area that includes Laois, Offaly, Westmeath, Meath, Longford, Kildare, Tipperary and Kilkenny.”
“The contention that the HSE does its best to offer placements close to a person’s community, in line with his or her will and preference, could not be more detached from reality. There was no real answer on the growth of private provision. We know that the proportion of services being provided by private operators is increasing significantly year on year and that is hugely problematic. Families have waited long enough. They do not need another promise that a strategy may emerge at some point in the future. They need a Government willing to face the scale of the crisis now. There was a passing reference to working towards multi-annual funding in the Minister's response. Our non-profit disability providers are unanimous in their message to us in the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Disability Matters.”
“That is exactly the problem families are facing; generalities instead of commitments, process instead of urgency and strategy instead of action. This motion is about people with intellectual disabilities living far from home, parents in their 70s, 80s and 90s being terrified about what happens when they are gone and families being left in a state of constant worry and stress because successive Governments have failed to plan. What we needed today was a reckoning with that failure and leadership in addressing it. What we got instead was a rehearsal of perceived Government achievements that are not being felt by families on the ground and more vague gesturing towards future strategies. I do not say that lightly. There was no clear commitment to a national plan for people living many miles from home.”
“I came here today in a genuine spirit of constructive engagement with Government. I have no interest in reducing this crisis to party politics, but I have to say the response of the Minister, Deputy Foley, and that of the Minister of State, to this motion has left me utterly deflated. I have no doubt that sentiment will be shared by many people who have tuned in today who are counting on Government to take comprehensive and decisive action on this crisis. Out of a ten-minute statement, the Minister, Deputy Foley, spent eight minutes on broad statements, aspirations from Government, future strategies and general concern. She only engaged with the actual substance of this motion in the final couple of minutes, and I did not detect any engagement with the motion on the Minister of State's part.”
“To borrow one of Micheál Martin's favourite phrases: We do not claim to have a monopoly on compassion on this issue but we do have the drive to address it. We approach the crisis with ambition and humility. Ambition, because families have waited far too long for a planned system of community living. Humility, because the dysfunction in the system is so deeply entrenched. Entrenched does not mean inevitable. A crisis that has been years in the making will be fixed only by people who are in it for the long haul and by proper investment. If the Government is serious about this, we are ready to work with it. Families have had enough sympathy; they need a plan. They need to see political urgency in action. If the Government is serious about facing up to the crisis, we will support it.”
“The motion calls for the provision of multi-annual funding so public and not-for-profit providers can plan and sustain proper supports and a phased reduction in reliance on for-profit residential provision. This is not about writing a blank cheque for service providers on a simplistic notion that non-profits are all good and for-profit companies are all bad. It is about ensuring that Government investment is tied to a strategic plan for services and to human rights standards. We are approaching this constructively and are ready to engage with the Government on it. I acknowledge the valuable work of Fianna Fáil TD, Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan, in Cork, linking the Before We Die campaign with both city and county councils. This is a crisis that will require sustained efforts across the Oireachtas.”
“Replies to my parliamentary questions show that at least 606 people with an intellectual disability in residential settings are living outside their home county and at least 193 are living more than 100 km from home. However, these figures are likely to be much higher because large parts of the country were unaccounted for in the HSE's data. A major part of the current crisis is that we do not have a full picture of its scale. The motion requires a proper assessment of unmet need; one integrated referral pathway with clear lines of responsibility so families are not passed between local authorities, the HSE and other service providers; individual community living plans built around the will and preference of the person; and a five-year national community living strategy with funding, targets, regional planning and public reporting.”
“He is worried about people living far from their communities with no choice in their lives, and about Ireland ever going back to institutions. As Tony Murray, chairperson of Before We Die, said at a recent public meeting in Cork, we have replaced the high walls of institutions with distance. For many people with an intellectual disability, moving on from congregated settings has meant a new form of alienation, dislocation from home, being placed in an emergency arrangement and being left there until it effectively becomes long-term exile. Before We Die has highlighted that more than 2,300 adults with an intellectual disability are living with parents over 70, many with parents over 80 and some with parents over 90.”
“In particular, I thank Tony Murray, his wife Susan Corrigan, their daughter Aoife, and also Sinéad McGrath, who has led the campaign in Cork and her sons Alex and Lee. Their dynamism, openness and encouragement have inspired many families and helped ensure that this motion is rooted in real lives and real experiences. I also thank Paul Alford, whose experience has helped inform this motion. Paul has an intellectual disability and spent 30 years in an institution before he was finally able to rebuild a life in the community. He now works with Inclusion Ireland. He has spoken about what the institutional life meant for him: very little freedom and other people making decisions for him. Paul is working to make sure nobody else has that experience.”
“The starting point must be the person - where they feel a sense of belonging, their relationships, connections, the pursuits that give their life meaning and the place they can truly call home. The current system could not be more jarringly at odds with that basic right. Too often it asks where is there a bed or vacancy - somewhere, someone can be put. This motion is about bringing humanity, planning and accountability into a system that has drifted for far too long. The Before We Die campaign deserves enormous credit for taking this crisis out of the shadows and bringing it into public view, for uniting families in common purpose and for turning private anguish into a political force.”
“The Social Democrats are bringing forward this motion because adults with an intellectual disability are being left without a clear plan for where they will live, what supports they will have and what happens when a parent becomes ill, can no longer continue caring, or dies. Thousands of families are living in that kind of purgatory. When crises come, the answer from the HSE is too often whatever placement can be found, even if that means traumatic upheaval from family, community, routines and friends. Each person with an intellectual disability is a unique individual with their own preferences, wishes, relationships, fears, strengths, vulnerabilities and support needs.”
“Worried, anxious, fearful, angry, afraid, powerless, terrified, scared, overwhelmed, abandoned, hopeless. Words like these came up again and again in a survey the Social Democrats conducted in the run-up to this motion. Most of the 513 responses came from families of people with an intellectual disability but we also heard directly from people with an intellectual disability themselves and from advocates. Then there were the written responses that stopped us in our tracks – parents saying in different ways that they hoped to outlive their own adult son or daughter because they had so little confidence the State would support them properly when they were gone. That tells us the depths of this crisis in community and living supports for people with an intellectual disability and the emotional reality for the many families caught up in it.”
“I move: That Dáil Éireann: agrees that: — every adult with an intellectual disability has the right to live as independently as possible in their own community, with the supports they need to live with dignity, autonomy and security; — Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) recognises the equal right of disabled people to live in the community, with choices equal to others; — each adult with an intellectual disability is a unique individual, with their own preferences, relationships, aspirations, needs and levels of support; — a home is not simply a bed, a placement or a service vacancy, but a place where a person has belonging, continuity, relationships, choice, privacy, autonomy and support; — planning for supported living and residential supports must begin before crisis arises, not only when an ageing parent or family carer can no longer continue providing care; — supports should be organised around the person's will and preferences, with the involvement of family members or chosen supporters where the person wishes, and with access to supported decision-making and independent advocacy where required; — family relationships, community connections and proximity to home should be supported wherever possible; and — people should have meaningful choice over where, how, and with whom they live, and should not be forced into a single model of accommodation or support; notes that: — too many adults with an intellectual disability, and their families, are forced through a bureaucratic maze involving service providers, the Health Service Executive (HSE), local authorities and other public bodies; — many families are left without a single public body taking clear responsibility for planning the person's future living arrangement; — this failure to plan means that the State too often intervenes only when a family reaches breaking point, a parent dies or becomes unwell, or an emergency placement becomes unavoidable; — the true level of unmet residential and supported living need for adults with an intellectual disability is not known, as the HSE has stated that there is no centrally maintained waiting list for residential services, and the HSE's Disability Support Application Management Tool records applications for additional funded supports, but is not a chronological waiting list and does not represent a statutory entitlement to services; — available figures are, therefore, only a partial picture of need, and understate the scale of the crisis, as many disabled people and their families do not know that they are required to be on a local authority social housing list to be recorded within housing need; — at the end of quarter 2 2025, HSE data recorded 1,389 applicants for new residential services, up from 776 in 2019, but the HSE has stated that this was a "point in time" analysis and may not include applications received but not yet processed; — the Department of Health's Disability Capacity Review to 2032, published in 2021, projected a need for at least 1,900 additional residential places by 2032 under a minimum projection, and up to 3,900 additional places to restore provision to pre-2008 levels; — the Before We Die campaign has highlighted the fear and uncertainty faced by ageing parents, who do not know where their adult son or daughter will live when they can no longer provide care; — in evidence to the Houses of the Oireachtas, Before We Die stated that, of 1,000 families surveyed, only 2 per cent had a formal written housing plan for their adult son or daughter with an intellectual disability; — Before We Die also stated that only 19 per cent of the adults with an intellectual disability in its survey were on the housing list, underlining that official housing and residential data cannot be treated as a reliable measure of true need; — Before We Die has also stated that more than 2,000 adults with an intellectual disability live with parents aged 70 or older, including 500 whose parents are over 80 years; — parliamentary question data has shown that at least 606 people with an intellectual disability in disability residential settings were living outside their home county, and at least 193 were living more than 100 kilometres from their family home or community of origin; — these figures are minimum figures only, because major gaps remain in the State's data on how far people with an intellectual disability are living from home; — the HSE has stated that information on residents living in residential centres more than 100 kilometres from their community of origin is not collated nationally; — in HSE Dublin and Midlands, specific data on residential placements more than 100 kilometres from home was not available, with the HSE stating that a proposed information technology change to the National Ability Supports System would be required to provide this data in future; — in HSE Dublin and Midlands, data was also not readily available on how long people had been living away from their home community, on moves completed closer to home, or on the reasons for out-of-area placements; — in HSE South West, the reported figure for people living outside their county did not include people from Kerry placed in Cork, or people from Cork placed in Kerry, even where those placements may be more than 100 kilometres from home, because records only captured people placed outside the HSE South West region; — there is no adequate system for routinely maintaining and publishing national data on the distance from home of adults with an intellectual disability placed in residential or supported living settings; — emergency and out-of-area placements can become permanent by default, even where a person wishes to live closer to family, community and familiar supports; — the latest available figures show a growing reliance on private for-profit disability residential provision, rising from approximately 8 per cent of residential places in early 2022, to approximately 16 per cent by the end of 2025; — in 2025, approximately €526 million of public money was paid to around 220 private for-profit providers for disability residential placements, with approximately €306 million paid to the five largest providers; — since 2021, there has been a doubling in the proportion of residential placements provided by for-profit companies, without adequate transparency on cost, location, quality, distance from home, human rights outcomes or long-term planning; — the HSE, Section 38 and Section 39 providers, are expected to deliver complex services, while too often operating within short-term and uncertain funding arrangements; and — younger adults with an intellectual disability should not be left in nursing homes, or other inappropriate settings, because the State has failed to plan suitable community-based alternatives; further notes that: — Inclusion Ireland, and other disability organisations, have emphasised the importance of Article 19, personal assistance, personalised budgets, person-centred respite and short breaks, therapeutic supports and a continuum of community-based supports; — disabled people, families and representative organisations have led the struggle for independent living, deinstitutionalisation, and community inclusion over many decades; — this advocacy helped secure Time to Move on from Congregated Settings, Ireland's ratification of the UNCRPD and its Optional Protocol, and the wider shift towards rights-based community living; — a rights-based system must plan homes and supports around people, rather than placing people wherever a vacancy happens to arise; and — public funding for long-term disability homes should build public, voluntary, not-for-profit and community capacity, rather than deepen a market in crisis placements; and calls on the Government to: — publish a five-year national community living strategy for adults with an intellectual disability, prepared jointly by the Department of Children, Disability and Equality, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the HSE, local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs); — include in that strategy projected need, regional planning targets and annual targets to reduce waiting lists, emergency placements, out-of-area placements and inappropriate placements, including younger adults living in nursing homes; — ensure that the strategy includes a robust national assessment of unmet need, including people recorded through HSE disability services, local authorities, AHBs and service providers, and people living at home with ageing parents or family carers who are not yet captured on any formal housing or residential list; — establish a single statutory community living pathway with one point of referral, one co-ordinated assessment process, one named responsible team, clear decision-making timeframes and access to independent advocacy; — ensure that every adult assessed as requiring ongoing supported living has an individual community living plan developed with the person and, where the person wishes, with family members or other supporters; — ensure that individual community living plans address preferred location, choice of living arrangement, support needs, safeguarding, healthcare, transport, day supports, family and community connection, decision-making supports and transition steps; — provide a clear route for review, where the person, their family member or chosen supporter disagrees with the proposed pathway; — fund a sufficient range of community-based supports, including supported living, personal assistance, personalised budgets, home support, person-centred respite and short breaks, shared living arrangements, individual tenancies, therapeutic supports and intensive community supports where required; — expand public and not-for-profit community living services through multi-annual funding arrangements for HSE and Section 38 and Section 39 providers; — progressively reduce dependence on private for-profit providers for long-term community living services, while ensuring continuity of support, independent advocacy and protection from forced moves for existing residents; — require written reasons, a rights assessment, a safeguarding plan, and a review timeline for any emergency or out-of-area placement; — prepare a plan to support a person placed far from home to return or relocate closer to their family and home community, unless this is contrary to the person's will and preference; — ensure that funding and service development are linked to transparent human rights, safeguarding and quality standards, including standards on choice, inclusion, privacy, advocacy, family and community connection, and restraint reduction; — routinely maintain and publish national data on the distance from home of adults with an intellectual disability, placed in residential or supported living settings; — publish an annual report, setting out by region and provider type: — the number of adults with an intellectual disability awaiting residential, supported living or community living supports; — the number known to be living with carers aged over 70, and over 80; — the number living outside their home county; — the number placed more than 50 kilometres, and more than 100 kilometres from their family home or community of origin; — the length of time spent living away from home; — the number of emergency placements; — the number of placements arising from family crisis, including the death, serious illness or incapacity of a parent or primary carer; — expenditure by provider type; — progress in implementing individual community living plans; and — the number of people with a documented plan to move closer to home, and the number of such moves completed each year; and — present that annual report for debate to both Houses of the Oireachtas, and respond with actions, timelines and funding requirements arising from its findings.”
“Is it that companies operating in Ireland for commercial advantage, access to talent and access to the EU market and tax purposes will forfeit all of that just because Donald Trump might throw a tantrum about Ireland refusing to facilitate illegal settlement trade with a genocidal apartheid state?”
“The Taoiseach originally told us the occupied territories Bill could not be enacted because of legal constraints. More recently, he admitted that the real obstacle, in his eyes, is the fear that American companies might abandon Ireland. This is despite the fact that his own party not only voted for this Bill in 2019 but actually introduced it to the Dáil on behalf of Senator Frances Black. He promised voters during the general election campaign of 2024 that he would enact it. Is there any level of mass murder, State terror, forced displacement or land theft visited upon Palestinians by the Israeli state that would move him from words of condemnation and appeals for a unified European approach that may never materialise to meaningful trade sanctions and the proper enactment of that 2019 Dáil vote? What exactly is he asking us to believe?”
“Any transition for these families must be humane, carefully planned and properly communicated, not a jolting upheaval for families who have already lost so much, particularly as Ukraine has been facing increasing bombardment in recent months. What plans does the Government have for the residents in Trabolgan? How will vulnerable groups such as older adults, disabled people, or those whose homes or towns have been destroyed or occupied by Russia be treated?”
“More than 500 Ukrainian residents in Trabolgan, east Cork, are facing eviction from the holiday village. They include 167 children and 74 pensioners. Many of those children are settled in local schools. These are people who fled war and have over time become part of the community in east Cork. Local teachers, SNAs, volunteers and community groups have worked in partnership with them to help the children settle, build trust and give the families a sense of stability after trauma. I appreciate that a temporary accommodation arrangement such as this cannot last unchanged forever, but the State has a duty of care here.”
“When the political will existed, an Irish Government used the powers available to it to prevent normal sporting relations with a state engaged in mass atrocities.”
“This is cynical gesture politics aimed at two men who are never coming here. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich may be among the most grotesque versions of Israeli colonial criminality but they are not an aberration. They are the logical outcome of a state being granted total impunity by our closest international allies, the US, UK and EU, to mass murder, terrorise, starve, displace and plunder a defenceless civilian population. The Government now says it cannot act but history says otherwise. In 1999, Ireland was due to host Yugoslavia at Lansdowne Road while atrocities were being committed in Kosovo. UEFA refused to postpone the fixture. The then Government did not shrug its shoulders and hide behind the sporting authorities. It refused entry visas to the Yugoslav squad and the match did not proceed.”
“Those actions, however, cannot be treated as sufficient when Gaza has been almost entirely destroyed, much of its population murdered or permanently disabled, destruction and mass murder continue despite the so-called ceasefire and while the facts on the ground in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza increasingly make any meaningful, viable Palestinian State close to impossible. Illegal settlement expansion and settler violence, property destruction and theft, military occupation and forced displacement are the machinery by which Palestine is being dismantled in real time. This is why the Government’s ban on Israeli Ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, from travelling to Ireland was such weak and empty tokenism. These insular tribalist extremists are about as likely to visit Mars as they are to take a trip to Ireland.”
“First, I commend my colleague, Deputy Gibney, on today’s Private Members’ motion and for her strength of advocacy on Palestine. The Israel-Ireland match should not go ahead. This is not a normal sporting fixture. It is a fixture involving a state that is carrying out genocide in Gaza, maintaining an ethno-supremist system of apartheid and accelerating ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and now southern Lebanon. The Government wants credit for recognising the State of Palestine. I welcomed that recognition, as I welcomed other acts of solidarity it has taken.”
“The reimbursement system too often leaves families trapped in a process where time is lost as a condition progresses. Will the Taoiseach exhaust all efforts to try to bring forward the HSE drugs group discussion on Skyclarys from July to June so that Paudie and his family are not waiting unnecessarily any longer?”
“I raise the case of Paudie Cody from north Cork. As the Taoiseach knows, the Cody family has already suffered the devastating loss of Paudie's younger brother, Rory, to Friedreich's ataxia. Paudie, who is 16, is living with the same cruel condition and his health is deteriorating. I welcome the compassion the Taoiseach showed in meeting Paudie's father, Craig, in recent days and his commitment to do everything he can to help secure access to Skyclarys for Paudie and other patients who may benefit from it. I also acknowledge the strong advocacy of the Taoiseach's colleague, Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan, on this. I join other TDs, including Deputy O'Sullivan, in asking that this commitment be followed through with real urgency and that Paudie and other patients are not left waiting. There is a wider injustice here.”
“There is no excuse for it. Will the Taoiseach commit to a proper national register, stronger enforcement and full collection of levies?”
“The recent RTÉ "Prime Time" programme on dereliction should shame the Government into action on this issue. It showed that driving the blight of dereliction is an abject failure of enforcement as well as a failure to even record the number of properties that are being left to rot in our towns, villages and cities. The problem is painfully visible in east Cork. Castlemartyr is a beautiful, historic village with enormous potential but large parts of its main street have been scarred by long-standing, egregious dereliction. It is well-known locally that much of that dereliction in Castlemartyr is linked to one family. This is not just about appearances. It damages community pride, housing supply, tourism appeal and heritage, and creates a wider impression of neglect and decay. How has this been allowed to happen for so long?”
“If my business has a good month and then a bad month, will the system understand that? If I need assistance to do the parts of the job my disability makes difficult, will that be recognised as a legitimate cost of participation? This is where cost-of-disability policy must connect with policies on employment, enterprise, transport, housing and health. Otherwise, we trap people in poverty and then congratulate ourselves for speaking about inclusion. The Government cannot continue to describe disability rights as a priority while refusing to resource the basic conditions that make those rights real.”
“He has gone to major lengths to highlight the infuriating barriers faced by disabled entrepreneurs: higher costs, the need for personal assistance, the risk of losing essential supports and a lack of joined-up responsibility across Departments and agencies. One reality he has captured is that supports exist, to some extent, for businesses to employ disabled people but not for disabled people to employ themselves. That is exactly the kind of structural barrier we need to confront. For disabled people, self-employment may be the best path to self-actualisation and the best way to work flexibly, yet instead of supporting that ambition, the State often turns it into a bureaucratic nightmare. People are then forced to ask: if I try to work, will I lose my supports? If I take on a contract, will I be punished?”
“There must be a permanent annual cost-of-disability payment. There must be immediate relief for people under pressure right now. Disability allowance and related payments must be brought to a level that reflects the reality of poverty, deprivation and additional costs. Too often, our system treats disability support as though it is only about whether someone can or cannot work. However, many disabled people want to work, want to build careers, want to start businesses and want to contribute socially and economically. What they face is a system full of cliff edges, maddening complexity and risk. Disability campaigner Eddie Hennessy from County Cork has described this powerfully. After a major stroke, Eddie built a photography business and became an award-winning photographer.”
“That is what the cost of disability can mean in real life. It means people making impossible decisions between heat, health and independence. This is happening, unforgivably, in a country with a flourishing economy, large budgetary surpluses and repeated Government statements about inclusion, participation and rights. There is a clear commitment in the programme for Government to introduce an annual cost-of-disability payment. There has been a consultation and a summit. There may be further papers, processes and interdepartmental work. Some of that will be necessary but disabled people cannot pay bills with consultations or heat their homes with strategy documents. They cannot run medical equipment on future commitments. The Government needs to move from acknowledgement to serious action.”
“At a later session on the Leinster House campus, we heard a harrowing account of a disabled person who had to stop home dialysis because of energy costs and rely instead on hospital dialysis, a change that put her health at greater risk. That example should stop us in our tracks. Home dialysis services a serious medical need. It means a modicum of increased independence in extremely challenging circumstances. It can mean fewer exhausting journeys, a little bit more control over one's life and less pressure on hospital services. Essentially, we have here somebody pushed into greater medical dependency and, ultimately, at greater cost to the State. It is a complete absurdity. Because of the cost of powering essential medical care at home, that person was forced away from the safer and more independent option.”
“The figures are stark: one in five people unable to work due to long-standing illness or disability lives in consistent poverty; around two in five experience enforced deprivation, meaning they cannot afford basics such as heating or new clothes. The ESRI and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission have shown that when the additional cost of disability is properly factored in, poverty among disabled people is drastically underestimated. Even those figures do not capture the daily reality. At a protest outside Leinster House before Christmas, one person spoke about having to decide whether to turn on one or two bars of an electric heater because energy costs have risen so sharply.”
“I commend Sinn Féin on this motion. This issue goes to the heart of whether we are serious about disability rights or content to keep repeating the language of disability rights while leaving disabled people to absorb costs that are neither optional, marginal nor of their own making. The cost of disability means higher expenses associated with transport, equipment, therapies, healthcare, communication supports and personal assistance, among other things. It means the cost of navigating a society that is still far too inaccessible and being expected to pay personally for that inaccessibility. It has been long established that disabled people face major additional financial burdens as a direct result of living with a disability in a society not properly adapted to their needs.”
“If the Government is serious about sustainable development in east Cork, it must invest in the bus services that allow people to live, work, study, visit others and age with dignity and purpose in their communities without being completely dependent on cars.”
“That is not acceptable in a wealthy country. This is where the Department of public expenditure has to be challenged. The public wants better services and local communities are crying out for them. The Department of Transport understands that need. Local operators are willing to provide services but too often the cold, dead hand of the Department strangles any prospect of new services developing, as if we were living in an impoverished nation that could not afford basic regional transport. This is short-sighted in terms of our economy, social needs, tourism potential, disability considerations and, of course, carbon emissions. A functioning bus network is a basic need.”
“It affects the wider public as well because, when bus services are inadequate, everyone is pushed into car dependency, even for short journeys that should be possible by public transport. That means more cars on already overburdened roads. It means more congestion around Midleton, Lakeview, Castleredmond and Ballinacurra. It means more pressure on families and reduced independence for people who should not have to rely on lifts from relatives or neighbours to get around. This is also an embarrassment from the perspective of tourism. East Cork has extraordinary towns and villages and also an extraordinary coastline, heritage and food culture. We are inviting tourists to come here, many from countries where high-quality public transport is standard. When they arrive, they find that getting around without a car is extremely difficult.”
“What east Cork urgently needs is a frequent, reliable and efficient bus network connecting our villages, towns, schools, workplaces, healthcare services, train stations and tourism destinations. At present, people living in villages such as Cloyne, Ballycotton, Whitegate, Aghada and Saleen are effectively stranded if they do not have access to a car. That is the reality. For many people, this is about whether they can get to college, attend a medical appointment, visit family or take part in ordinary community life. The impact is particularly severe for disabled people, older people, young people, those on low incomes and anyone who cannot drive or afford to run a car.”
“In the context of today's discussion, I want to focus on bus services and their discontents, and in some cases their near-total absence, across east Cork. We hear a great deal about BusConnects, strategic corridors and the future of public transport in Cork. It is vital that the ambition extend beyond the city and the immediate suburbs. In east Cork, the current standard of bus service is utterly abysmal. I strongly believe that the Midleton-Youghal rail link is an essential part of the long-term public transport future of east Cork and that commuting misery between Youghal and the city is only going to get increasingly worse until it is restored. Rail development has to be supplemented with a quality bus service that reaches all of our settlements.”
“This has consequences for housing, jobs, tourism, town centre renewal and the ability of people to live and work locally. Upgrading the N25 is important, but we need a decisive modal shift to rail and light rail in the city to address gridlock, reduce emissions and give Youghal a fair chance to grow sustainably. Will the Taoiseach commit to having more ambition for Youghal in respect of public transport?”
“One of the most important climate measures that could be taken in my constituency of Cork East is the restoration of the Youghal train link. The Taoiseach is well aware of the rail advances under way in the region. We look forward to new stations between Midleton and the city, and ten-minute frequencies of service. Youghal and its hinterland, though, are being entirely left out of that revolution in public transport. This is about carbon emissions, but also about fairness in regional development and Youghal’s potential for prosperity. Residents of Youghal face gruelling commutes to work, college or special schools outside the region. At the same time, the residential and economic development taking off in Midleton and Carrigtwohill is not happening in Youghal at the same pace or on the same scale.”
“Repeal was not meant to replace constitutional callousness with legislative obstruction. It was meant to ensure that women could access compassionate healthcare in their own country. We should allow this Bill to progress.”
“This Bill would make the law more workable, more compassionate and more true to the complexity of real-world experiences of fatal foetal abnormality. It would provide clear legal space for care where there is a fatal condition affecting the foetus. It would also address the chilling effect of criminalisation of doctors who are providing healthcare in good faith. No decent healthcare system should force clinicians to practice under a spectre of fear when dealing with complex, sensitive and time-critical cases. No woman should be told in the middle of a pregnancy ending in tragedy that the Irish health system cannot care for her because the wording of the law is too narrow. This Bill is not about reopening the referendum. It is about honouring it and taking on the recommendations of the Government's own review.”
“The problem is the current legislation's narrow and inflexible parameters. In cases of fatal foetal abnormality doctors must operate within a framework that requires a level of certainty that is simply not possible in all instances. In real clinical situations, that level of certainty may not be available. Families facing devastating diagnoses should not be left in limbo because the law demands a level of precision that clinicians cannot realistically provide. The result for clinicians is fear and hesitation. Doctors are left worried about the legal consequences of acting. Families are left waiting for certainty that may never come, and some women are still forced to leave the country for healthcare. This is not what people voted for in 2018.”
“They described booking flights under a cloud of shame, travelling abroad, navigating an unfamiliar health system and trying to stave off the effects of the trauma they were living through before returning home carrying grief that had been made worse by the actions of this State. Those stories changed Ireland, yet years later some families are still being put through versions of the same ordeal. The recent public testimony of Denise Whitmore brought this home with painful clarity. Denise learned at a routine scan in 2024 that her baby had a fatal condition. Instead of being able to receive care in Ireland, Denise had to travel to Britain. Her experience is a warning that the law is still failing people in the precise circumstances the referendum campaign asked us to address.”