Basic housing and living support services are being denied to people with disabilities. For people with an intellectual disability, the required supported living services are an absolute necessity.

Adults with significant intellectual disability – and their parents – have little or no option other than to continue to live together in the family home. The government’s priority has already been allocated to those individuals with ID who are in congregated settings, those wholly-inappropriate settings that in the process of being closed down since 2012. As welcome as those closures are, others with ID have no choice but to remain in the family home – with parents who are themselves becoming less able to provide the care and supports that the person with ID needs. The person’s housing needs are only being addressed when their parents or siblings become seriously ill, or worse. Only then do adults with ID receive emergency housing provision. This scenario is totally in conflict with the UNCRPD, whose Article 19 calls for “the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others, and shall take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right and their full inclusion and participation in the community“.

This is an enormous crisis, on top of the wider national housing crisis, that is being hidden from view. It is being ignored and set aside by the government due in part to the huge cost that would be required to address it fully.

Locally, the only additional residential service or supported independent living capacity made available in DLR (excluding de-congregation) in over 20 years is one where the parents of a young adult donated their family home to the State. The National Housing Strategy for Disabled People (2022-2027) simply ignores the staggering revelations within the Disability Capacity Review published in 2021 along with the Disability Action Plan Framework 2022-2025.

“The proportion of people with ID in residential care has fallen significantly from its pre-recession rate. In the absence of a planned programme to meet identified needs, there is only a limited pool of extra places provided for those classified as emergency. With such limited places, it is only those in the most extreme situations who are getting a residential place.”

“While the costs of addressing both are projected to be significant, if no measures are taken, unmet need and demographic change will continue to grow and become more acute as the disability population ages. In addition, there will be a significant human cost for the individuals concerned and their families”.

“To deal with both the backlog and with demographic change, overall an extra 1,900 residential places would be needed by 2032 under the minimum scenario, and an extra 3,900 under the pre-recession scenario.“

So, according to their own analysis, 3,900 extra residential places are needed – and that’s just to get us back to the situation that existed in 2008! So much for improving the living conditions of those who are most vulnerable – as well as the lives of their parents and families. Many of us believe that this number is only the tip of the iceberg, and that the shortfall is hugely understated, simply because many families know that there is little or no prospect of getting any housing and living support service from the HSE. Many parents are themselves so exhausted and frustrated with decades of fighting for services and therapies that many simply leave the housing issue to their next-of-kin to sort out.

My colleagues David Girvan has prepared a submission that he has recently made to various stakeholders to help drive the reform that this issue is crying out for. You can read it here.