Does the Taoiseach agree that his promise of substantial improvements in services for people with intellectual disability rings hollow with the many hundreds of parents who experience, as we speak, actual cuts in those services? Far from being improved, the services are being cut. The Taoiseach spoke during the last session of the hundreds and thousands of euro which will be provided to his communications unit. He does not need a communications unit to tell him that in St. Vincent's in his own constituency there has been a 40% reduction in respite care and that there will be no weekend service from the month of June. What does the Taoiseach say to those families from St. Vincent's to Beaufort in Kerry who have been sent letters to tell them that there is nowhere for their profoundly handicapped children aged 17 and 18 to go next year when they leave the current service? How does the Taoiseach react to that?

It is not a matter of more resources, rather the Government has made a political decision to shift resources which could go to address intellectual handicap to privileged sectors of our community. In the 2002 budget, the Minister for Finance provided €329 million in corporation tax cuts and provided a further €305 million in cuts to the corporate sector in the budget for 2003. The Taoiseach has made a political decision to put on the back burner the vulnerable people who suffer from intellectual disabilities and their long-suffering parents and families while the corporate sector, the millionaires and the bankers are looked after by the Government. The National Association for the Mentally Handicapped of Ireland stated today that only €35 million would be needed to prevent cuts in services across the board and to meet the minimum requirements for the remainder of the year. Will the Taoiseach now make emergency provisions for 2003 to ensure that none of those cuts take place and to go forward to provide comprehensive services?

Deputy Rabbitte asked me about the dormant accounts fund. The board of the dormant accounts fund is to report shortly on the allocation of that money. It has not reported yet but is due to do so. Criteria are set out and the board will report.

I do not want to repeat what I have already stated to Deputy Joe Higgins, but I have already stated a number of times that the letters have been sent out to individuals and groups, many of whom I have talked to, and the Minister for Health and Children and the Minister of State in the Department of Health and Children are both dealing with that issue—

What does that mean?

It is not the intention that people will not get places. The Minister and the Minister of State have to deal with the issue and that is what they are endeavouring to do—

The Minister of State had nothing to say—

It is Deputy Joe Higgins's question.

We are in the sixth month of the year and it is a pity that people do not finish the discussions before criticising, but the Minister for Health and Children will deal with that in his own time.

As Deputy Higgins would know, the Daughters of Charity on the Navan Road are in receipt of a budget of almost €40 million this year from the Eastern Regional Health Authority. Negotiations have continued between the Eastern Regional Health Authority and the Daughters of Charity regarding the level of services that would be delivered in the current year, and the two organisations, as I understand it, are endeavouring to ensure that the same level of residential services would be provided this year as last year. However, there is a difficulty about respite and weekend respite services which has not been resolved.

Why does the Taoiseach fly in the face of the facts? Up and down this country, service providers are writing to families and stating in black and white that they cannot continue the level of service that existed up to now. They are providing for actual cuts. Why does the Taoiseach stand up and point blank deny the fact when this is happening?

If the Taoiseach knows something that the service providers do not or that the families and parents do not know, would he please tell us now? Is what he said a guarantee that the funding will be made available to service providers and that families need not worry about respite care and about the fact there is no place for their children to go after leaving their current care services at 16 or 17 years of age? Is the Taoiseach giving a guarantee that the extra funding needed for those services will be provided?

The dormant accounts fund is all very well, and those funds could be invested here, but the Taoiseach did not answer the point I made at the beginning, and I ask him to answer it now. Why did he decide this year, for example, that millionaire stud farm owners on the plains of Kildare or elsewhere would be protected from any taxation, which could bring in tens of millions to provide services like this and prevent the intellectually disadvantaged from having to face this situation? Finally, I refer to the Special Olympics. If this issue is not resolved, if there is not a cast iron guarantee that the necessary funding will be made available immediately and the families assured, would the Taoiseach agree that it is utter hypocrisy for him and members of the Government to swan around opening events at the Special Olympics as if they were the champions of the disadvantaged and the disabled, when in fact the opposite is the case?

What I stated was that the Minister for Health and Children and the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children are well aware of the current problem and are dealing with it. They will make their own announcements and it is not for me to make those announcements or deal with the issue.

I have also talked about where the level of funding has been brought up to, and nobody can deny that. I can go back through the figures if Deputies wish but I do not think that is necessary. The simplistic idea that if one creates a tax it will yield hundreds of millions of euro is utter nonsense. It would not even yield tens of millions. We would just wipe out another area of activity in this country by doing some of the things the Deputy suggests. The Government has put an additional €500 million into the whole area of disability and we will continue to put in substantial funding. We have made it a priority for the last number of years. We have provided additional places and services and large numbers of staff. The Government is committed to maintaining expenditure at the level we have got it up to, and hopefully we can build upon this as resources permit. Of course there are some current difficulties which the Minister and the Minister of State have to deal with, and I have already said that we will deal with the legislative base.