Inclusion Ireland Announces Government Budget Plans for Intellectual Disability

national | health / disability issues | opinion/analysis Tuesday December 12, 2006 14:51 by M Cotton

Budget 2007: Funding for new and enhanced services

Brian Cowen, Minister for Finance announced in his Budget speech on 6th Dec 06 an additional 100m to fund health related disability and mental health services in 2007. This funding incorporates the 2006-2009 multi-annual funding promised under the National Disability Strategy.

Below is a breakdown from the Dept of Health & Children of the additional funding:

41m for new services for people with an intellectual disability or autism to provide:

255 new residential places
85 new respite places and 535 new day places.

2.2m is ear marked to transfer people from inappropriate settings. The same number of new places was promised for 2006 and figures available from the National Disability Strategy Stakeholder Monitoring Group - NDSSMG (See below for further info on this) show that by 30th Sept 06, 193 residential places, 66 respite places and 433 day places have been created. Also by 30th Sept 06, a further 112 residential, 9 respite and 35 day services were enhanced i.e. the service was upgraded.

While new development funding is welcome, Inclusion Ireland has some concerns about funding being planned in terms of 'places' rather than individual need. Clarity is required as to the relationship of new services created with numbers on waiting lists for services. For example, the 2005 report of the National intellectual Disability Database (NIDD) report shows that just 284 people were on a waiting list for a day place, yet 433 new day places were created. Equally, the 2006 NIDD report shows that 264 new day places will be required in 2007 but 535 are planned. There are a large number of individuals who require a change in their day placement this year and next year. However, according to the 2006 report of NIDD (Page 76) these places should already be in the system and do not need to be newly created.

Through its position on the NDSSMG Inclusion Ireland is seeking clarification on all new service developments and enhancements. It is important that any new funding will be used to develop innovative services that meet individual need. It is worrying to note that according to the NIDD reports of 2005 & 2006, there is a decrease of 50 people in supported employment services.

The remainder of the 100m additional funding will be allocated as follows:

Service developments for persons with a physical disability will be allocated 12m.

There is a sum of 25m allocated to Mental Health Services including commitments in "A Vision for Change".

A further 15m will be allocated towards the introduction of Part 2 of the Disability Act, i.e. the Assessment of Need process, which begins in June 2007 for children under 5.

A Sum of 5m will be set aside to fund voluntary Service Providers who have identified core funding deficits.

And finally 2m will be provided to fund an increase in the Rehabilitative Training Capitation Rate.

Social Welfare Changes

Inclusion Ireland is pleased that its repeated requests to the Dept of Social & Family Affairs to extend the full rate Disability Allowance to those in residential institutions has been listened to. From Jan 07, all those in residential centres will now be entitled to the full rate DA.

From Jan 07 the rate of the Disability Allowance will increase by 20 Euro per week to 185.80, which we had also called for. Furthermore, changes to the means test for those on or applying for DA will mean the first 50,000 of a person's capital will be disregarded. This disregard was just 20,000 previously.

Bereavement Grant

Inclusion Ireland has for many years highlighted the anomaly that families of persons who receive the DA are not entitled to a Bereavement Grant when the person dies because the person has not been in employment and not paid PRSI contributions. This has now been addressed in Budget 2007 and from May 2007 entitlement to the Bereavement Grant is extended to those families. The Grant has increased from 635 Euro to 850 Euro.

Carers Allowance

Inclusion Ireland welcomes the introduction of a half rate Carers Allowance from Sept 2007 for those full time carers who are entitled to the Carers Allowance as well as another social welfare benefit. Due to the restriction that a person can only receive one social welfare payment, many carers forfeited the payment of a Carers Allowance or the other payment, for example a Widow's Pension. Inclusion Ireland had proposed to Govt as a start to introduce at least a half rate Carer's Allowance to those on or entitled to another payment. This will be introduced in Sept 2007. The Dept of Social & Family Affairs will publicise the application process in due course.

The Carers Allowance will increase by 20 for those under 66 to a weekly amount of 200 Euro .
For those over 66, an increase of 18 will bring the weekly payment to 218 Euro.

The weekly income disregard for the Carers Allowance will be 320 per week for a single person and 640 for a couple from April 2007.

Fuel Allowance will be increased from 14 to 18 Euro per week.

From April 2007 the Telephone Allowance Scheme will include mobile phones. From 2007 the tax credit for an incapacitated child will be increased from 1,500 to 3,000 Euro.

Respite Care Grant

Inclusion Ireland requested in its Pre Budget submission to Govt that the Respite Care Grant be increased from 1,200 to 1,500 and was pleased with the announcement on Budget Day that the Grant will increase 1,500 in June 2007.