Four hundred new residential and respite places are to be provided for people with learning disabilities, Minister of State Ms Mary Wallace said yesterday.
Ms Wallace, who has responsibility for equality and disability issues, told a meeting of the National Association for the Mentally Handicapped of Ireland that 200 day places would also be created.
A total of £1.7 million is to be spent on providing escorts and special harnesses for children with disabilities on school buses.
The maximum Disabled Person's Grant towards converting a house for a disabled person is being increased by 50 per cent to £12,000. The Essential Repairs Grant, aimed at disadvantaged and elderly persons in unfit houses in rural areas, is being extended to towns and cities and increased from £1,800 to £4,500.
New spending on services for people with physical disabilities will include £4 million for aids and appliances, capital investment of £4 million next year and "£9.4 million additional revenue for 1999 with a full-year cost of £12.4 million for 2000," she said.
The Irish Wheelchair Association said later that the funding fell far short of the £21 million it had sought to bring spending in line with the Department of Health report "Towards an Independent Future". Gamblers had done better than people with disabilities in the Budget, the association said.
Mr Gerry Ryan, the chief executive of the National Association for the Mentally Handicapped of Ireland, told yesterday's meeting in the Mansion House, Dublin, that waiting lists for residential care had not gone down since 1990.
Of the £18 million announced by the Minister for learning disabilities, £6 million would simply pay for the current level of services, he said.
Mrs Annie Ryan, a former president of NAMHI, said people were still kept in conditions in institutions which infringed their rights.
She is to meet the UN Committee on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights in Geneva next week to complain about Ireland's record on the issue. Disabled people sitting at home because no service was provided for them were also having their rights infringed, she said.
Her views were echoed by the Centre for Independent Living in a statement marking yesterday's International Day of the Disabled.
The CIL said it questioned "how committed the Irish Government is to so-called `mainstreaming programmes' while continuing to invest millions in segregated training situations where workers have no rights and are paid as little as £15 a week."