Minister Anne Rabbitte Speech - Budget 2025

Check against delivery

I am delighted to have the opportunity to provide more details on the allocation for specialist disability services in 2025, which amounts to €3.2 billion.

It’s great to be able to say the Disability Budget is surpassing €3 billion for the first time. An 11.6% increase on 2024, and since I was appointed Minister for Disability in 2020, investment in disability services has increased by €1.2 billion.

This is a clear commitment by Government to people with disabilities and their families. We are not only speaking to the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities but ensuring that delivery is enabling real world implementation of it for children and adults with disabilities.

The 2025 allocation will build on service expansion achieved in 2024, as well as recognising increases in the cost of service provision and pay cost pressures on service provider sustainability challenges.

There are a number of key areas I have been keen to address in this Budget, including:

• €106.6 million to address the full year costs of this year’s expected delivery on priority residential places as well as support for approximately 70 new residential placements and the transition of under 65s from nursing homes to more appropriate housing in the community
• €30.8 million for Respite and supports to assist people to continue living in their own home. This allocation will support full year costs of respite delivered in 2024 as well as development of services in 2025. I’m particularly focused on the provision of alternative respite, such as weekend clubs, equine therapy respite, after school clubs and tea-time respite
• this will also include the full year cost of around 180 intensive home support and supported living packages delivered in 2024, as well as an additional 150 packages in 2025
• in the area of Homes Support and Personal Assistance hours, there will be an uplift of 40,000 and 20,000 respectively
• importantly though, I’ve also set aside additional funding for 2025 to begin the progressive alignment of the PA rate and the Home Support rate with Older Persons Services. This in turn should hopefully improve the delivery of current hours, which may go unfilled due to staff working elsewhere for higher rates of pay
• on Children’s Services, with funding already provided in recent years for additional posts to enhance the capacity of the Children’s Disability Network Teams, there will be further funding available in 2025 to continue recruitment. I’m particularly pleased to see Health and Social Care Assistant and Clinical Trainee posts in the mix
• the ongoing Assessments of Need waitlist initiative launched in May has been proving very successful, with 1,100 AoNs cleared across June, July and August through the private sector. I’m earmarking €10 million to continue this, which in turn frees up resources available to provide therapeutic supports to children with complex needs
• €40.3 million is allocated for Day Services, adult multi-disciplinary therapy and neurorehabilitation supports. This includes the full year cost of 2024 school leaver placements as well as the new cohort of school leavers in 2025
• while there is often focus on therapy provision for children, I’m also starting the development of a process to provide multi-disciplinary therapy services for adults, which has been long sought. The initial funding will complete a mapping exercise to assess existing provision of services and allow for further development of models of provision
• having also invested heavily in the rollout of Community Neuro-Rehab teams in the last couple of years, there is funding set aside to ensure the levels of staffing required can be achieved to deliver these crucial supports in the community
• sustainability is an ongoing issue raised with me by service providers, with this Budget delivering €25 million to support a range of stability and sustainability measures, including the development of Local Area Co-ordinator roles aligned to the Disability Action Plan and specifically the New Directions policy, which strives to achieve person-centred day services
• pay cost pressures also arise across the sector and funding to support the agreement struck with S39 Service Providers is separately accounted for
• having published the first ever Autism Strategy in August, I have secured €2 million to set up a new Autism Innovation Fund to support community groups across the country in the work they do. This is on top of the funding already backing a number of actions in the Strategy, such as supports for sensory initiatives
• a combined €2 million will be made to enable the Decision Support Service to continue to implement the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act and will facilitate the National Disability Authority to provide continued policy advice to Government on disability issues, supporting the advancement of national strategies in this area

Earlier this year, I announced the development of the first capital strategy for disability services. Alongside the current spending allocation in 2025, capital expenditure will increase to €27 million, with investment targeting a range of infrastructure developments supporting the likes of Respite, Residential, and day services.

To conclude, I am confident that the funding available to disability services in 2025 will allow a continued focus on enhancing access, sustaining and stabilising services and working towards the objective of ensuring that services are available as and when they are needed in a persons’ life.

Thank you.