Rabbitte supports proposal to fund return of overseas disability workers to plug staff shortages

Minister of State for Disability services Anne Rabbitte has said she would support the State funding overseas disability workers to return to Ireland to address staffing shortages in the sector.

Speaking on Wednesday, Ms Rabbitte said there was “no denying” there was a deficit of staff in the disability sector, which needed to be addressed.

“We need to bridge that gap. So whatever mechanism is available to me, I will leave no stone unturned,” she said.

A forthcoming reform of children’s disability services would include funding to subsidise people “buying their airline tickets, to bring them into Ireland to support us,” she said.

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The planned reforms were “very close to completion” and would be put to the Health Service Executive (HSE) board shortly, she said.

The Fianna Fáil TD said what she needed was a “willingness” within Government departments and organisations to improve services.

The comments followed the publication of a report by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Autism, which detailed 109 recommendations.

It backed subsidies for overseas disability workers to return to Ireland to fill posts, as well as calling for a range of payments for families and individuals with autism, and measures to improve conditions for staff in the sector.

Speaking after the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Autism released its final report, committee chair Micheál Carrigy said he intended to raise the issue of enhanced or new payments for people with autism and those who care for them at a pre-budget meeting of the Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday evening.

“That’ll be happening this evening,” he said, outlining how the committee had heard of annual costs of caring for someone with autism heading towards €20,000, and many instances where parents have to give up work to care for an autistic child.

The report calls for financial support for families who access private services “due to their unavailability in the public health system”, as well as non-means tested disability payments for autistic and disabled people and their carers who incur high levels of expenditure due to their diagnosis.

It also calls for the income disregard for the carer’s allowance to be increased and for a pilot basic income scheme for carers, and for the benchmarking of the disability allowance alongside grants to assist autistic and disabled people in paying large one-off expenses.

Green Party Senator Róisín Garvey said she planned to raise the issue with Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman, while Fianna Fáil members Senator Catherine Ardagh and Pádraig O’Sullivan TD said they would discuss it as part of the budgetary process with Minister for Finance Michael McGrath.

The report makes a wide range of recommendations, including that the autism strategy should be underpinned by legislation, and that there should be steps to stem staff shortages – including paying for transport for disability workers coming to Ireland – and increasing the number of graduates in relevant therapeutic professions.

Ms Rabbitte said some of the recommendations were “low hanging fruit” that would not require legislation to introduce.

The Galway East TD said the Government was keenly aware how “incredibly expensive” the costs of services and care was for families who had a child with a disability.

Funding for residential services for people with disabilities seemed to be geared towards constantly responding to the next “emergency”, rather than focusing on building capacity in the system, she said.

Despite “substantial” funding increases in recent years there was still a “clear level” of unmet need across the country, she said.

Disability services were not an “attractive” place to work at present, with staff leaving to take jobs in other parts of the health service, she said.

Ms Rabbitte said she planned to “champion” the cause of voluntary providers running residential disability services, to secure extra funding “to support them stay in existence”.

The junior minister said she would also be looking to address staff pay, which voluntary providers have said is currently much less attractive than HSE positions in the same or similar sectors.

Ms Rabbitte said she would seek additional funding for the disability sector and supports in the Budget later this year. “So I expect all senior Ministers to have a very open door to me when I approach them,” she said.

The Fianna Fáil TD was speaking at the launch of an event with autism charity AsIAm and the National Transport Authority (NTA), as part of a plan to make public transport more friendly for those with autism.

Anne Graham, chief executive of the NTA, said the agency would be looking to engage with people with autism and families with children who had additional needs, to see where transport operators could improve.

“We know they have needs, particularly sensory needs, and we want to learn from the families of those with autism,” she said.

“It’s about learning and about them giving us ideas about what we can implement now on our public transport system,” she said.