My priority, as always, is the health and wellbeing of people with a disability. I also want to ensure that people with a disability have greater choice, and I welcome the move away from providing respite in congregated, health service settings, to integrated holiday services that provide people with greater options, alongside the supports they need to maintain independence.
I am very aware of the concerns which both service users and their families have concerning the ability of designated hotels to adequately cope with particular service requirements, particularly those with high dependency needs. I intend meeting management of both the HSE and the IWA over the coming days seeking clarification of service users concerns.
Cuisle is a commercial operation, run by the Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA). IWA is funded by the HSE, under a Section 39 service arrangement. The HSE is providing funding of €40m to the IWA in 2019.
The HSE purchases respite breaks from the IWA under this Section 39 arrangement.
I understand that the Board of the IWA has taken the decision to transition its holiday service in the West of Ireland to provide accessible hotel holidays into the future, and to move away from its holiday facility at Cuisle, Co Roscommon. IWA is planning to provide a wider range of choice to people with disabilities seeking to take a supported respite holiday in the West of Ireland by partnering with accessible hotels. This service will commence in March 2020 in conjunction with the HSE.
IWA have informed the HSE of the following:
- That it will have an agreement with key hotels resulting in access to several wheelchair accessible hotel bedrooms, providing aids and appliances, including high low beds, hoist, shower chair and commode etc.
- There will also be a team of trained personal assistants available 24 hours a day to meet the requirements of guests.
- Guests will book into the hotel just like everyone else and will be issued with their room and key card.
- They will be met by Irish Wheelchair Association’s trained staff who have a full understanding on their personal support requirements, including medication management and clinical tasks, through the IWA respite booking process.
- IWA has been operating comparable hotel holiday breaks in Kilkenny since 2018 and has received positive feedback across the board from guests.
- 99% of guests said that they would return.
Oh my God how many times do we have to listen to the same statement(rubbish). Cuisle is an unique national holiday centre used by handicapped and able bodied people this cannot be replicated by mainstream hotels. The model in kilkenny has 3BEDS how can this compare with Cuisle. I thank God am a able bodied person with brother in a wheelchair. I am a member of a gaa club and every year we go away together for a few days, booking into a hotel with 20/39 persons no bother, this decision to close Cuisle denies disabled people from going away on a break with their local groups in other words this is discrimination. This also is another attack on rural Ireland by this fine Gael government.
The closure of Cuisle was a decision made solely by the Irish Wheelchair Association. I am aware of service users concerns and am seeking clarification from the IWA on these concerns.
To minister Finian McGrath
That sounds like the IWA wrote that statement for you. To keep Cuisle opened for another year would have offered more choice to the service user. It would be also offered the sfaff the opportunity to find an organisation to run Cuisle into the future. The IWA have lied from the start and I can prove that. I believe the IWA have different plan for Cuisle that they are afraid to announce at tis time. I also believe that these plans are helpful to you. You could be ashamed of yourself.
The closure of Cuisle was a decision made solely by the Irish Wheelchair Association. I am aware of service users concerns and am seeking clarification from the IWA on these concerns.
Minister McGrath
Are you telling me thst there will be be a hotel capable of accommoding groups of up to 50 people with physical/Intellectual disabilities in a safe suitable building, where they are to the forefront of everything thst is going on. Activities arranged, personal care provided as required. Will they have the run of the building. Able to dance, sing as often as they wish. Will those with speficic needs, behsvioural and others will be free to express their needs, vocally without being stared at
whispered about, while parents are left to feel embarrassed by peoples lack of awareness and understanding. Oh and finally Minister will all this be in place up and running by May 2020, when we are due to visit Cuisle for the 18th year on the trot. I await your reply, although I already have an idea it will be in the negative
The closure of Cuisle was a decision made solely by the Irish Wheelchair Association. I am aware of service users concerns and am seeking clarification from the IWA on these concerns.
Mr McGrath
You are just parroting what the IWA has said in their comments.
Why have neither yourself, the IWA, nor the HSE ( who seem to ultimately hold the purse strings ) meet with the actual Cuisle users and the staff together to hear what they suggest is in their best interests!?
You have stated the HSE is providing the IWA with €40,000,000.00 for 2019; surely the approximate €2 million could be found to bring Cuisle up to standard and let it run with this new hotel project?
Speak with the minister for health, Simon Harris, and see if the 2 of you could do your jobs and get the IWA and HSE to listen to the very people who do not want to be in a clinical hotel, who love their time meetings friends old and new in Cuisle under the care of people who have know them for years!!!
I beg of you-listen to the people.
The closure of Cuisle was a decision made solely by the Irish Wheelchair Association. I am aware of service users concerns and am seeking clarification from the IWA on these concerns.
This is giving people options but taking choice away it is taking the choice of an accessible and person centred holiday away.
Cuisle has been welcoming and inclusive before hotels were forced by legislation to be wheelchair accessible not necessarily wheelchair user friendly.
The closure of Cuisle was a decision made solely by the Irish Wheelchair Association. I am aware of service users concerns and am seeking clarification from the IWA on these concerns.
45 people lose their jobs and you believe that hotels will be a better place for those with disabilities. Having worked for many years in hotels I can assure you that the majority of hotels do not have the trained staff nor do they have the facilities that Cuisle is able to provide. can you genuinely say that hotels are going to put in specialist beds and and all the ancillary facilities needed for stroke victims for dementia patients for children and adults with autism for people with down syndrome for people who are unable to control their bladder or their bowels and the list of disabled goes on, and you think that in a hotel restaurant that able bodied guests will accept the way some disabled have to eat their meals. I can give you one instance where I received a complaint about a man who because of mouth cancer had to have his tongue removed and all his food had to be liquidised and he made the very loud slurping noises, I explained to the guest what the man had been through but he was not interested he wanted the man out of the restaurant there and then.My response was that I could not and would not ask the man to leave. This created an atmosphere of tension and the following morning the disabled man and his carer came to me and with tears in his eyes through his carer he was telling me he was sorry for upsetting the other guests.I told him he had nothing to be sorry for the guest who complained said he was going to see to it that I would lose my job needless to say the owner of the hotel did not sack me. the point I am trying to get across is that these sorts of instances are going to be replicated many many times over if you allow Cuisle to close because in a facility like Cuisle that sort of complaint just would not happen. Cuisle is such an important place in the lives of people with a multitude of disabilities and the facilities it has are specific to the needs of all who go there for respite/holiday and the staff are so attentive to the needs of everyone who goes there. You will not get the same level of care and attention in a hotel setting.It is not a case of keeping disabled people separate or integrating them it is a case of disabled people having a place where they can feel comfortable and where those who are carers can relax and know that there is everything that is needed is there to hand.
If the closure goes ahead what will be the position for the 45 staff and what will be done with the building? Does the I W A have plans for it? Will it be sold or left to rot? Can the I W A justify getting 40 million euro in public funding? will the HSE continue to give them this level of funding? Can the I W A say they continue to have the needs of the disabled as their top priority when they are closing such a much loved and vital facility for the disabled? I would urge you to help get this decision reversed and keep 45 people in employment and keep countless people with and without a disability very happy
Hi William, The closure of Cuisle was a decision made by the Irish Wheelchair Association not me. I am aware of service users concerns and am seeking clarification from the IWA on these concerns.
The closure of Cuisle was a decision made solely by the Irish Wheelchair Association. I am aware of service users concerns and am seeking clarification from the IWA on these concerns.
Minister
You need to check the numbers the Kilkenny model is catering for. Cuisle is providing over 30 beds per night. As Cuisle also accepts bookings from able bodied people it is more along the lines of a hotel itself….see bookings.com …where you yourself can book in with your family. The difference being that Cuisle caters for diability first and able bodied can fit in rather than the other way round which is the disadvantage that wheelchair users are up against no matter where they go. It is the only hotel model which provides jacuzzies with hoists….you tell me the hotel who will provide this? There should be choice in all systems….use the hotel model but it should be tried and tested over the next 2 years to decide if it should be the only model available to people. Users of Cuisle should be surveyed on what they prefer. How would you like to be dictated to about what kind of holiday you can go on….who you are forced to share your dining arrangements with…if you can access the spa or not….This is what Cuisle offers….no hotel can provide that level of support and everyone here involved knows it. A high dependency patient would need 6 people per day to look after them. Thats two people to use hoists etc. In 3x 8 hour shifts for 24 hour care…..have you even begun to cost this. Most hotels will provide 2 rooms max for hotel model. So that means 6 people working per 24 hours to provide a service for 2 people. In the likes of a holiday centre like Cuisle…2 people can provide service for up to 5 persons. I am sure you like the fact that when you are choosing you holiday you can go to a hotel…hostel…go self catering…book an activity break ..painting…cookery…retreat…
But here we are telling wheelchair users they will only have a single model the hotel model available to them in the future….in what way is this a step forward? Life is about choice…freedom is about choice…democracy is about choice.
Cuisle has specially adapted buses which take visitors on day trips with staff support…will hotels put on this kind of service? Cuisle takes the hassle out of day to day living for those in wheelchairs so they can truely relax…forget about the usual unnecessary hassels of wheelchair living and relax….surely this is what we all want and deserve from a holiday…Actually enjoying a holiday rather than being told to enjoy it by others.
….Devil is in the detail where this issue is concerned.
You must look into the finer details here the waters have been so muddied it will take a perceptive mind and a person with real vision to see through the fog that has been created here in order to arrive at an enlightened place where choice and democracy are enshrined.
Hi Margarita, thank you for your message. I’m fully aware of the concerns raised by service users following the announcement of the closure at Cuisle and am seeing clarification from the IWA. This closure was a decision made solely by the Irish Wheelchair Association.
I think its a disgrace what you are standing over. Kilkenny has space for 3 Wheelchair users. That is segration.Cuise can cater for up to 73 wheelchair users many of them that attend are friends from their days in school together who want to meet up to socialise.Sometimes boyfriends and girlfriends with a disability go there for a week or two for a holiday like any other human being..Could you reply how many hotels you know will cater for wheelchair users that have hospital beds , overhead hoists and trained staff. Please dont go on with this congration crap. i work in healthcare and have never had a complaint off one person about Cuisle and their lovely staff.Its all about costcutting with not a shread of humanity on people with disabilities.
it might be the only holiday they can have and a small break for their wonderful parents who work 7 days a week out of love and devotion for their child.You have definitely left your legacy.
Hi Dermot, the closure of Cuisle was a decision made solely by the Irish Wheelchair Association. I am aware of service users concerns and am seeing clarification from the IWA on these concerns.
This is utter rubbish, there is no hotel in this country, nor will there be in the future, which will cater for wheelchair users in big numbers. If it is a cost cutting exercise all of these extra amenities in hotels will have to be paid for, will that cost be at the expense of the disabled person, making the cost of the room even higher.
The closure of Cuisle was a decision made solely by the Irish Wheelchair Association. I am aware of service users concerns and am seeking clarification from the IWA on these concerns.
Please provide a list of hotels that can replace Cuisle.
The closure of Cuisle was a decision made by the Irish Wheelchair Association not me. I am aware of service users concerns and am seeking clarification from the IWA on these concerns.