At least 1,300 people with learning disabilities are in the queue for scarce residential places, according to the National Parents' Alliance, a new national campaigning body formed by organisations of parents and siblings of people with mental handicaps.
In its pre-Budget submission, it has called for an "assault" on the deficiencies in services for people with learning disabilities.
The cost of the programme outlined by the NPA would be £85 million which, it says, is "about £8 out of every £100 of the expected financial surplus that the Minister for Finance will be announcing on Budget Day".
The largest element in the proposed programme is a £40 million investment in residential services. Apart from the 1,300 people who, it says, are waiting for residential places, a further 1,000 are living in entirely unsuitable and inappropriate conditions.
The next-biggest item is respite care, in which a person with a disability would leave the family home for occasional weekends, weeks or nights to give the family a break.
In some cases, the submission says, the burden of caring "leads to intolerable levels of stress, physical exhaustion and burnout". It says there is at best only one respite place for every 10 families who need access to it. It says £12 million should be allocated for extra places.