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LAST UPDATE | 20 Nov 2024
FIANNA FÁIL PARTY leader Micheál Martin today hit out at the HSE and the Green Party for a lack of progress in delivering school-based therapies for children with disabilities.
Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin both separately launched their disability policies in Dublin earlier today.
Sinn Féin said there had been a “decades-long failure” of successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil governments to provide for disabled people.
Meanwhile, Dublin South-Central Fianna Fáil candidate, and former senator, Catherine Ardagh spoke about her personal experience with the system.
“As a mother of a son with autism who is non verbal, I know first hand the daily struggles families face. My son, Darragh, is full of potential and brings us so much happiness and love, but like so many other children, he’s held back by the system that hasn’t caught up with our family’s needs,” she said.
Standing next to her party leader, she added:
“This week, many families, including my own, have received rejection letters to school places across the country.
It’s frustrating, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s absolutely exhausting, and it’s a reality that no family should have to face.
She called for “real change”, stating that a nationwide roll out of a one-stop-shop for school applications, whereby there is visibility on school availability. She said this would remove the administrative burden on parents and ensures no child is left without a school place.
Speaking at his party’s launch, Martin said a new national therapy service in schools is a “red-line issue” for Fianna Fáil in any future programme for government and that significant investment and reform is needed in disability services.
The Tánaiste said he wanted to address gaps in children’s disability network teams (CDNT) and roll out a new national therapy service in education, which would see a multidisciplinary response including therapists directly providing therapy in schools.
He added that too many families were waiting too long for assessments of need, which are a HSE process to identify a child’s needs and must be completed within six months.
Fianna Fáil would “ramp up” the numbers of therapy clinicians and assistants, as well as occupational and speech and language therapists, the Tánaiste pledged.
He admitted that these measures, along with an increase in regional assessment hubs, would “take time” – adding that his party would ensure increased procurement of private assessments in the interim.
Pressed on what would be different about a future Fianna Fáil term, the Tánaiste blamed HSE delivery and recruitment of therapists.
“The recruitment and retention plans are not working. There seems to be a morale issue, a human resources issue, an overload issue within the CDNT teams.”
He said there was a “fundamental issue” of the system not delivering on services: “It’s unfinished business as far as I am concerned.”
Martin also said there was “resistance” from Green Party leader and Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman to Fianna Fáil’s school-based approach, who instead preferred a programme within the HSE.
Fianna Fáil’s plan includes the development of a disabled person’s organisation, the expansion of summer provision, the increase of the disability support grant to 1,000 euro, doubling the housing adaptation grant, adding 20,000 personal assistance hours, and public sector pay parity for section 39 staff.
Fianna Fáil has held the Health and Education portfolios for the last four-and-a-half years, along with the Minister of State role for disability.
Asked if she was frustrated by a lack of progress, Ardagh said 1,700 special classes had been introduced since 2020 but added there was a need for further ambition: “We’ve come from the ground, and we need to reach the treetops.”
Martin added that there needed to be obligations around inclusion at every school in the country.
Elsewhere, Sinn Féin said it would fully staff CDNT teams amid reports of 800 vacancies.
Sinn Féin disability spokeswoman Pauline Tully said her party would increase annual current funding for disability supports by €829 million and provide €659 million of additional capital beyond what has been pre-committed for existing levels of service.
She said Sinn Féin would ensure disabled children have their needs assessed, have school places, and summer provision of support.
Tully said her party in government would make sure young disabled people are supported to pursuit their goals in education and employment.
She added that adults with disabilities will be supported to live independent lives.
Elsewhere, the party has committed to providing 3,000 additional residential places for people with disabilities, expanding day service places by 4,000 and adding 345,000 personal assistance hours annually.
At the start of the election campaign, Sinn Féin briefly parked a small truck with a billboard over double yellow lines and a footpath for a press conference on Dublin’s Merrion Street.
Asked if her party had to do more internally to promote inclusion and accessibility, Sinn Fein employment spokeswoman Louise O’Reilly said: “We’ve done a huge amount of thinking about disabled people and, indeed, sometimes we are constrained by logistics – that happens.”
She added: “Sometimes in the teeth of an election campaign, you don’t always get to the venue that you want.”
O’Reilly said the party makes “every effort” on accessibility, adding that Sinn Féin was seeking a “holistic” approach around employment strategies and universal access to public transport in the country.
She said that, for her own part, her constituency offices are fully accessible.
Includes reporting from Cillian Sherlock, Press Association.
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FF does NOTHING for disability services while in government then blames someone else. Never accountable. And over HALF A MILLION ADULTS live in their childhood room because of FFG’s housing failure. We can try a new approach. We can put ordinary workers ahead of vulture funds. Homeownership over fund-ownership. Vótail Sinn Féin.
@F1rYnpWc: Exactly and RSA for road deaths…there to deflect Ministers’ shortfalls
@Spartacus Ireland: every road death is the fault of Roderic O Gorman. Nothing to do with FG or FF.
@F1rYnpWc: that’s why you should vote FG
@Cole Palmer: you appear to be obsessed with him. How is he responsible for road deaths?
@F1rYnpWc: Exactly and the buck stops with both the Taoiseach & Tanaiste who take decades to get anything done, vote FFG and live in a tree.
@Paul M Doe: Tired jim / Paul m doe / william slevin / fintan pox / john doe / john m doe / john p doe /ulysses / exhausted jim / tired jim / john jon / lefty tears / lefty cries and dozens more troll accounts . Read any of their posts and you will see the quality of his comments, he has never added anything constructive or of any merit to any conversation on this platform. He has been banned on many occasions for good reason.
On one hand , it is sad to think how someone’s life choices have led them to be this desperate for attention , while on the other hand it is easy to see that he is so pathetic that nobody will interact with him in the real world.
@William Slevin: william slevin 24 May 2023 “I’ve must have had 3/4 of my comments deleted…I’ve been banned nearly 80 times because of them…” after this admission it would be extremely difficult to deny that you are a multi account troll
@Paul M Doe: FG, dose that stand for fuc!ings gangster. Dim wit.
@William Slevin: no stalking here william, I have distinct recollections of watching your paranoid melt-downs in real time. Very easy to track your previous comments , just Google william slevin + the journal – all your comments that are not deleted are there for everyone to see . On 24th May 2023 you claimed to have had 80 accounts banned, now 18 months later that number is over 300 accounts banned, that averages at 12 accounts a month – or 3 accounts a week by your own admission. Now tell me you are not a multi account troll.
If only we had a FF minister of health who the HSE should answer to eh Michael
@Ger Whelan: spoken like a true Roderic O Gorman apologist.
@Cole Palmer: eh no. Roderic should be before a committee groveling for forgiveness for the children that have gone missing from state care. But let’s call a spade a spade her Stephen Donnelly is minster for health and he’s who the HSE answers to. So it’s some cheek of Micheal Martin to ignore the failing of his own minister
@Ger Whelan: I agree with you. All 3 have to go
@Ger Whelan: And who set up the HSE without the backbone to make the tough decisions that just turned it into a quango?
@Brian D’Arcy: That would be Michael Martin himself
If only he were minister for health at any point in his political career & the HSE board were ever accountable to successive health ministers – hmmmm.
@A M: It’s worse for MM. He was the health minister who set up the HSE. He was pushing it for years. He was moved to another ministerial position a couple of months before the HSE officially took over and Mary Harney took over.
@Ger Whelan: He also seens to have forgotten all about what he promised in the health strategy 2001 23 yrs ago.
@Ger Whelan: he stepped down from the organ retension scandal. Another disaster.
As much FF’s responsibility as the Green’s.
@Ross: Actually it is not. I was amazed he said it! But it is the truth!
@Ross: It’s the responsibility of Roderic O Gorman, no one else. Stop making excuses for him.
@Ross: Micheal out pretending he is a bystander & shocked at the Disability Services & telling lies that he will ramp up services & they are a red line issue for them. He hangs the Greens out, but nothing about his own failures when he has been Taoiseach, Tanaiste & been at Cabinet level for 17 years, he also forgot to mention the Minister for Bags of Cow Dung, who as Minister for State is responsible for the failures that her party colleague Catherine Ardagh speaks of & also Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly. Micheal is some Cowboy, deflecting blame & responsibility from himself & his party, lowest of the low. The truth is they couldn’t actually care about people with Disabilities & if they did, they would have done so over the last 4.5 years, with their Budget surpluses. FF out now !
@Cole Palmer: it’s the responsibility of the HSE also. And the HSE is Stephen Donnelly’s responsibility. So yes it’s as much FF’s fault as it is the Greens
@Ger Whelan: that’s True
@Cole Palmer: Excuses for the Big Rod? Where?
@SV3tN8M4: he was bertie aherns right hand man for nearly 30 years.
They are in charge for a long time and now they want action. Till the elections are finished I presume.
Were fianna fail not in Government with the Greens
The circle of blame…. We want you gone as well Chrome -Dome!!!
that’s the limit.. government hits out at government for lack of progress.. GFY ffg..
Throw the Greens under the bus time. They knew what they were getting into when agreeing to go into a coalition.
The €1,000 savings account is a freebie for the well off who could provide a savings account for the child anyway but mothers and families need tye 1,000 now because of the economy that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have created, setting up a society based on bank loans to survive off of, just liie the Celtic Tiger and for those who say that Fibe Gael had nothing to do with that, John Bruton claimed that it was Fine Gael who started that. We don’t need boom to bust or an economy for the well off, we need an economy for the ordinary person, the majority, not the minority abd that it was the deadly duo have given, an economy for the 1% pushing us ever closer to the American economy of haves and have nots.
@Brian D’Arcy: Simon actually said my children won’t suffer from austerity like I did. Or words to that effect. When did he ever suffer. And children from last recession are still suffering in hubs and hostels.
He has Some cheek holding these children after the government he was part of put this country on its knees, and how he has the position he holds now is beyond belief, holding our children of the future to destroy their lives(shame)
@Phillip Smyth: it really beggars belief
Wake up people, It has been proven Harris lied about the number of children waiting more then four months for spinal operations while he was minister for health, he’s trying to blame everyone, but will not take the blame himself .
@Jimmy Kiely: He got flummoxed the last night in the 10 Leaders debate, when asked did he sign off on the NCH. While he didn’t sign off on it, as the Minister he gave his ok towards it, couldn’t acknowledge that of course.
@SV3tN8M4: Harris and Martin makes a sad double act. According to Martin we didn’t Bailey out the banks, and Harris never signed off on anything bigger then sweet paper.
@Jimmy Kiely: I am looking forward to voting for the awesome FG
@SV3tN8M4: fact he didn’t sign off individually the Government signed off any bottom line the hospital will open and the health outcomes for all our children will be enhanced.
@Tim Brennan: They’re responsible for squandering obscene amounts of taxpayers money and should be held accountable. Taking accountability is the minimum we should expect from those in government, seeking re-election. Simon looked like a small boy when asked about signing off on the blank cheque for BAM. Zero respect for people’s money
@Tired Jim: FG fuc!ing gangster’s. FF follow the fo!ls
@Jimmy Kiely: butsimon was on the ball when we had covid 17 and 18. He was all over that.
and Who brought the Greedy Greens into Government to tax us more?
To the electorate in Cork South Central, vote this man OUT, he can’t even remember that the troika had taken over the country’s economy in October 2008. He established the unaccountable HSE monopoly that no one will ever be disciplined over incompetence like Mehole
@Tommy: I cannot believe people will still vote for this shower, FF at my door today in cork South central,the brass neck of these lads is incredible
@sean weir: their is a bronze bust of Charlie Haughey in Dingle .An old man was asked on tv what he thought of it.He said the best thing about it was its brass neck.And that just about the sums up the Fianna Fail party.
Well, firstly, with Simon totally lying about numbers on scoliosis waiting lists and them being in the hundreds. While families are being removed from active lists without being told. To young adults having no consultants when they turn 18 and no checks being made for scoliosis.
How can anyone actually believe anything these two say.
The care referrdum showed the power families of disabled people and carers who can’t get out and march but can vote.
Can change things for our kids.
Time for change but not the change michael or Simon are talking about.
They are more concerned in schoolboy antics on tv than actually making a difference.
I’m sick of these constant expressions of love for children seeking services. As a family we have spent years fighting and screaming at the system. We only succeeded because we were stubborn and would not go away.
Credit to Michael Moynihan TD in Cork Northwest whom we could never vote for but his persistence eventually got us what was required.
Michael Martin could not even recognize Mr Moynihan for his dedication to his job.
It’s a serious offence to lie in court, same laws should apply to politicians who constantly promise everything but deliver nothing
@Brian Molloy: it suits FFG members to have toothless bodies like SIPO and our pointless regulatory bodies as it means more jobs for the boys and no one is ever held to account. It’s the FFG way you know.
@Brian Molloy: They are not lying in court you id1 it
If FF or FG told me they were actively going to pursue Dee Forbes and her ilk from RTE I’d consider giving them a high preference.
Thats an attainable target for them.
Hahahahahahahahahahaha.
People must remember that this is boom time and every failure of FFG will be multiplied when things go pear shaped as they will sooner or later.
@john salmon: What happened in the last boom time? Oh yeah, the ordibary person paid for the rich to be bailed out.
Have to smile as people have a pop at MM and forget what the article is about. Don’t care what the article about is closer to the fact.
It is about disability services which the HSE, the greens have not supported.
HSE boss refused to meet the Minister for Disabilities and her senior minister did nothing.
Staff having wages cut during austerity and not brought back up to scale, cuts made across the support services yearly.
Able people mostly have no idea unless they have skin in the game.
The only credible proposal so far on Disability is to appoint a Senior Minister to the position
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