‘What will happen to our children?’

Questions on future plans for Clogher House facility.

Concerned parents of soon-to-be young adults with severe and profound disabilities fear a lack of specialist day care places if investment is not urgently provided. Families predict an unprecedented “explosion” of demand over the coming five years will result in some children not accessing critical supports in the community.

Five and a half years ago one of the region's only specialist day units - Clogher House at Rathcorrick - was earmarked for decommissioning. Today, with capacity reportedly near its peak, the HSE is no closer to replacing it. This is despite a recently completed review highlighting “needs” and a shortfall in existing service provision locally.

The unit on the Crosskeys Road, on the outskirts of Cavan Town, remains one of the “only options” available to many families. They worry about what will happen once their kids turn 18 and graduate from Cootehill’s Holy Family School (HFS).

“We need our ministers to listen. What’s going to happen to our children?” asks a spokesperson for the Holy Family Special Group (HFSG), who say they’ve repeatedly made representations to the HSE, the Department for Health and others outlining these fears. “What will happen to [our children] once they leave the Holy Family? I can’t tell you enough about just how brilliant a facility [the HFS] is, where their needs - physical, medical, sensory - are all met. But what is going to happen after that?”

According to figures seen by The Anglo-Celt, for five years starting from 2024 the number of children with complex medical and physical needs leaving the Holy Family School’s Special Care Unit (SCU) and requiring access to day care services will increase dramatically.

A total of 16 children - eight each in Cavan and Monaghan – will leave the HFS over that period. The soon-to-be young adults often cannot maintain themselves without medical supervision.

They may also require incontinence care, medical care, assistance with feeding, and a range of other supports only available in a specialised setting.

The figures however do not take into account other children currently attending HFS, either with a moderate intellectual disability or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who will also graduate and leave once they too turn 18.

Once factored in, that figure rises to 54 who will require some form of support in Cavan between 2023-28, and 27 more in neighbouring Monaghan.

Catering for a range of dependency levels, Clogher House was due to be replaced with a new unit developed on a selected greenfield site as far back 2018. Once built the new facility would have been leased back by the developer to the health authority.

But by March 2019 Cavan Monaghan Disability Services were forced to contact the appointed contractor for an update, only to be told there were “some delays”. The agreement subsequently collapsed, with no movement since.

The Rathcorrick site houses both the Enable Ireland Children’s Disability Network Team Cavan and the €400,000 Enable Ireland Hydrotherapy Pool which was closed due to a lack of funding in 2019. It has reopened this year to some service users.

A spokesperson for HFSG, speaking with the support of HFS’s Parents Association, claims they’ve had three arranged meetings with ministers postponed to date.

They remain hopeful of being heard, but are wary of being greeted with “only lip service”, given the perceived failure to live up to past promises.

HFSG is now demanding that “long-promised” capital investment is forthcoming. They state the cost of it not being delivered is the “dignity of our children, the most vulnerable in our county”.

“Whoever comes out of special care at the minute seems to be going to Rathcorrick, which going back to 2018, was supposed to get a full new build. That never happened, and we’ve never got an answer for that. What’s there now is not fit for purpose.”

One alternative options open to families is to apply for places in other day units, often located in a tandem with care for the elderly.

“We keep asking the question, and the reply we get is ‘Don’t worry, the service will be provided’. But we know from speaking with people that the service cannot be provided in a proper facility because it simply isn’t there.

“We know at the minute what is there is operating at capacity. [Clogher House] was supposed to be decommissioned but never was. Nothing has changed since then. They may tell us ‘don’t worry about it’, but we are, and we have to be.”

When asked the HSE told the Celt that a “capital submission” has been made to its estates department “to include the development” of “alternative accommodation”, with “no current plans to relocate services” from the Rathcorrick site in Cavan.

They say that the “Dublin North East Estates Department is currently considering” a submission for capital funding.

“The HSE can confirm that Clogher House Services offer placements to a number of people with disabilities and in relation to the capacity of Rathcorrick Day Service, this will always depend on the individual needs of each person attending the centre.

“In regards to the projected school leavers requiring high support services, a review has been completed in conjunction with the Holy Family School and the HSE Disability Services are working with the Estates Department on alternative accommodation that will address the requirements to meet the needs identified by the review.”

The Celt has sought clarification on the HSE’s timeline.