GROUPS REPRESENTING people with intellectual disabilities have called on the Government to urgently introduce mandatory care standards and independent inspections of residential centres for disabled people.
At least 8,000 adults and 400 children are residing in institutions or care homes for people with intellectual disabilities which are not subject to State inspections or care regulations, as reported in The Irish Times this week.
Health authorities have received hundreds of complaints over the past two years relating to care standards. These range from issues such as poor accommodation to allegations of abuse or mistreatment.
Inclusion Ireland, an umbrella group of representative groups for people with intellectual disabilities, said any new independent inspection regime must involve officials from the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa).
Deirdre Carroll, the group’s chief executive, said: “Peer inspection and peer review can be an additional support to these inspections, but cannot replace independent Hiqa inspections.”
She said the Ryan report into abuse at industrial schools and the McCoy report into abuse at the Brothers of Charity in Galway have illustrated in the past the kind of abuse that can take place in institutions for people with disabilities.
“How many reports do we need before the Government ensures services meet a certain standard and independent inspectors are allowed to enter services to ensure standards are met?” Ms Carroll said.
Minister of State for Disability John Moloney said a shortage of public funds had prevented the introduction of such measures. However, he hoped to bring fresh proposals to Government on the issue before March.
“Our first commitment has always been that all residential institutions would have statutory inspections and that’s where we’re going to,” Mr Moloney said.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) said in a statement that it took all complaints made in relation to the treatment of clients with intellectual disabilities at residential centres seriously and had a robust complaints system in place.
It said many less serious complaints were dealt with at a local level. However, a “small number” of serious complaints in the last two years resulted in action such as staff being removed from duties, changes to staffing levels at facilities and disciplinary action.
“We would encourage anyone who is not satisfied with the response they received to a complaint to contact our consumer affairs department, details of which can be found on our website,” the HSE added.
The Disability Federation of Ireland, an umbrella group of more than 100 voluntary disability organisations which works closely with service providers, said the volume of complaints over care made for disturbing reading.
“We are very willing to continue to work with the HSE to ensure that lessons are learnt from the complaints gathered to date, and we want to actively support changes and developments that are required,” said John Dolan, the group’s chief executive.
Opposition parties have also stepped up calls for the Government to take swift action to deal with the lack of care regulations for the sector.
Labour’s spokeswoman on disability, Kathleen Lynch TD, said that while the vast majority of nurses and care staff carry out duties with care, that did not mean we could ignore the “egregious offences” that have been reported.
Fine Gael’s spokesman on disability, David Stanton TD, called for the establishment of a community-based advocacy scheme which would allow trained volunteers visit people with disabilities in residential care.