Joint statement from independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice and sitting Roscommon county councillor Nigel Dineen<\/em><\/p>\n

The Minister for Health Simon Harris has been called upon to approve a \u20ac2 million funding boost in order to main the services currently provided by RehabCare.<\/p>\n

Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice and sitting Roscommon county councillor Nigel Dineen have urged the minister \u2013 along with minister of state Finian McGrath \u2013 to back this proposal.<\/p>\n

As it stands, RehabCare employs approximately 1,500 staff who support more than 3,000 people \u2013 and their families \u2013 across 147 locations in 28 constituencies.<\/p>\n

Commenting on the matter, Fitzmaurice said: \u201cWithout RehabCare being allocated an additional \u20ac2 million by the HSE it will have to stop providing the level of services it currently does.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts employees provide support to people with disabilities and their families across the country. The services \u2013 delivered in partnership with the HSE \u2013 range from day, respite, residential and home care.<\/p>\n

\u201cRehabCare will receive \u20ac63 million this year from the HSE to run its services, but without an additional \u20ac2 million, money will run out before the end of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy office has been inundated with calls and emails in the past week regarding the potential cessation of RehabCare services.<\/p>\n

\u201cMinister Harris and Minister of State McGrath need to re-examine the budget available to them and reallocate funds towards RehabCare. When compared to the spending overrun witnessed in the National Children\u2019s Hospital project, \u20ac2 million isn\u2019t a huge amount of money.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the level of care provided to the 3,000 or so people by RehabCare staff, pulling these services would be detrimental to their overall needs,\u201d the Roscommon-Galway TD said.<\/p>\n

It is understood that RehabCare\u2019s deficits have arisen because of new and unfunded costs of regulation and significantly increased insurance costs.<\/p>\n

The fact that RehabCare took on a range of services during the recession which the HSE wasn\u2019t in a position to deliver on because of the moratorium on public sector recruitment also reportedly added to the losses.<\/p>\n

Highest priority<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Cllr Nigel Dineen believes the care provided to over 3,000 people by RehabCare staff needs to be maintained at its current level and by the same personnel.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cBoth routine and regularity are key tools in providing top-level care to people with disabilities. The disruption that would be caused by changing care providers over the course of 12 months would far outweigh the \u20ac2 million needed at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cRehabCare staff have built up strong relationships with all of the people who avail of their services; throwing this away for financial reasons would be shameful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe care provided to over 3,000 people across the country on an annual basis must be held as the highest priority. I am calling on the minister, and all of the officials in his department, to find a way to secure \u20ac2 million in additional funding for RehabCare\u2019s budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

Negotiations have been ongoing in recent days to resolve this issue, with talks set to conclude tomorrow (Wednesday, May 15^{th<\/sup>).<\/p>\n}

Concluding, Cllr Dineen explained that the Rehab Group has shouldered the costs arising as a result of the deficit created in RehabCare in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe group is coming under financial pressure and it cannot keep footing the bill. It needs to support of the HSE to continue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Michael Fitzmaurice TD \u2013 0861914565<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cllr Nigel Dineen \u2013 086-2130723<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joint statement from independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice and sitting Roscommon county councillor Nigel Dineen The Minister for Health Simon Harris has been called upon to approve a \u20ac2 million funding…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[94,95,93,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-3148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-press-releases","7":"tag-michael-fitzmaurice","8":"tag-nigel-dineen","9":"tag-rehabcare","10":"tag-simon-harris"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3149,"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3148\/revisions\/3149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}