November 2008

DIARY NOTICE:                                           

 

STANDARDS FOR SERVICES FOR PEOPLE WITH A DISABILITY CANNOT BE PUT ON LONG FINGER 

• Inclusion Ireland to call for implementation of standards at Oireachtas Health Committee Meeting on Tuesday 2nd December

 

Date:            Tuesday 2nd December 2008

 

Time:            3pm

                  

Venue:         Committee Room 2, Leinster House       

 

Who:            Inclusion Ireland, the National Association for People with an

Intellectual Disability

                 

Inclusion Ireland will call for the implementation of standards in residential institutions for people with an intellectual disability when it presents to the Oireachtas Health Committee on Tuesday.

 

Residential institutions for people with disabilities are not inspected and there are no national care standards applicable. In December 2007 a report was published into the abuse of adults and children with an intellectual disability in a service in Galway for 33 years. There are still no standards in place.

 

What do we mean by standards? For example, children without a disability who are in care have their homes independently inspected against national standards under the Children’s Acts. Children with an intellectual disability have no such protection.

 

The Health Information Quality Authority (HIQA) has produced standards for residential settings for people with an intellectual disability, which are due to be implemented in early 2009. HIQA will also present to the Committee on Tuesday.

 

Inclusion Ireland is extremely worried that in light of a decision to postpone implementation of standards for services catering for older people, standards for services for people with an intellectual disability will now also be put on hold.

 

Inclusion Ireland CEO Deirdre Carroll will say on Tuesday that we have been waiting long enough for standards to come into place and we cannot wait any longer. Inclusion Ireland has been campaigning for over twenty years for standards to be implemented. Standards have now been developed and gone out for public consultation. To not implement them at this stage, would be a massive waste of taxpayer’s money. To implement them on a voluntary basis would not be effective, and would ensure that the most vulnerable in our society remain at risk.

 

ENDS

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