I thank the Social Democrats for bringing forward this good motion and the Before We Die campaign for putting this on the political agenda. For too long adults with intellectual disabilities and their parents have faced the future with dread, not knowing what will happen to them after their parents pass away. The awful fear is that after they die, the adult child will go from a life where the best care has been lovingly provided by their parents to an uncertain, unplanned and even chaotic future. Over 2,000 adults with an intellectual disability are living with parents aged 70 or older, including 500 whose parents are over 80. This motion is urgent. It cannot just be allowed to pass because being seen to oppose it would be too embarrassing for the Government and then left on the shelf alongside everything else the Government knows it should do but will not because its priorities lie elsewhere. If the mark of a civilised society is how it treats its most vulnerable members, then the lack of care shown towards adults with intellectual disabilities marks this State as a profoundly uncivilised one. Successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments, in power since the foundation of the State, have failed abysmally to care for people with intellectual disabilities. They have been the first group targeted for cuts and the last to have funding restored. This is what the Government means when it talks about hard choices. It is never about targeting about the rich or the powerful. It is always about kicking the vulnerable and the poor. The motion points out that the number of residential places has still not been restored to pre-2008 levels and that an additional 3,900 residential places will be needed just to achieve that. If the Government cannot care for disabled people now, when it has billions of euro in surplus, when is it ever going to do it? The answer is never, unless it is forced to by campaigns like this one. The absence of State care was what prompted so many carers and disabled people to angrily reject the so-called care referendum, with its mealy-mouthed wording about striving to support family care. Carers have had enough of "Aren't ye great?" The Government needs to stop talking and start acting and develop a plan to implement all of the actions outlined in this motion.

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