School-leavers with intellectual disabilities face cuts in support

HEALTH AUTHORITIES are under mounting pressure to find places for up to 700 children with intellectual disabilities who require essential services when they finish school next month.

However, several voluntary service providers say they are “cut to the bone” and have started to turn down requests from parents for vital services for their children.

As a result, many parents fear they will have nowhere to send their children, many of whom require ongoing support such as occupational therapy, speech and language support or physiotherapy.

Each year the Department of Health offers “demographic funding” to provide emergency placements and services for school-leavers. But internal records show that, for the first time, there is no protection of such funding this year.

In addition, voluntary services face a cut of just under 4 per cent in State funding this year. This amounts to cuts totalling 14 per cent over the past four years.

Support groups say the cuts are exacerbated by the recruitment moratorium, the running-down of essential front-line services and the continued funding of pensions and increments for staff out of day-to-day spending.

The National Parents and Siblings Alliance says reduced spending will lead to substantial reductions in day and respite services, which will affect the basic quality of life for people with disabilities and their families.

The HSE’s service plan for 2012 acknowledges that “some reductions in services will be unavoidable even with efficiencies. These will arise in day services, residential and respite services.”

A number of parents in Cork, Limerick and Galway have been told by service providers that there are no places for their children, while transport and respite services are being cut back across a number of centres.

In addition, there are also fears for the future of a service in Sligo that provides care for more than 200 people with intellectual disabilities. This organisation, Cregg House, says cuts are undermining services and it may need to shut down.

Deirdre Carroll of Inclusion Ireland, an umbrella group that represents people with intellectual disabilities and their families, said many parents and their children faced an uncertain future.

“It is extremely disappointing and frustrating for families who are left in limbo over the future of their children,” she said. “The onus has to be on the Health Service Executive and service providers to come up with a plan earlier on how to deal with this, and not leave parents waiting until the last minute.”

In a statement, the HSE said that, along with the voluntary sector, it was committed to using all available resources in a “creative and flexible” manner to respond to needs of school-leavers.

The Minister of State responsible for mental health, Kathleen Lynch, was unavailable for comment. She has, however, said that service providers need to be more efficient in their use of the estimated €1.5 billion in State funding they get annually.

Among the service providers who have turned down requests from parents seeking support for children finishing school soon is the Cope Foundation in Cork. It said it has had to turn away eight applications for school-leavers from parents so far this year, though it has managed to find places for 28 young people.