Given that more than 50 families in Tralee and its environs have gone without a single night's respite care for more than 14 months for their adult disabled dependants, including a 75 year old woman who is in poor health and looking after her middle-aged son, when will the Government finally ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and give some level of hope to those people and their families? To cite an example in this respect, last year the HSE sanctioned the purchase of a building to provide respite care in Kerry and this year it refused funding for the running of it. What level of ineptitude will we accept from that organisation for it to do something like that?

I can empathise with the Deputy and the comments he made in the respect of the pressure and stress on people in this situation. The Disability (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill is going through the Dáil. The ratification of the convention is subject to a number of items of legislation going back 18 months or two years. In Ireland we prefer to put the legislation through and for it to become law and then to ratify conventions, rather than what other countries do in some cases, which is to ratify a convention and then they have to follow through with the legislation. The legislation, which is currently going through the Dail, is another piece of the jigsaw that will bring us nearer being able to sign that convention.

However, something needs to be done for the families the Deputy mentioned, and that is part of the programme the Minister for Health is examining with a ten-year perspective from an all-party Dáil committee. As to how we take the politics out of many of these areas, Tralee, no more than many other towns around the country, would love to have an opportunity to have a place where respite care could be provided for local people and where that opportunity should exist. In respect of the convention, that Bill is going through the Dáil. We will look at the question of access to respite care for the families the Deputy mentioned.

In 2015 a 40-bed long-stay rehabilitation unit was completed in Deer Lodge in Killarney and in 2014 a four-bed high-observation unit was completed in University Hospital Kerry but to date, those two units lie empty. I am told the reason they lie empty is due to a lack of staff to run these units. When will the Government and the Minister for Health make funding available to have those two units up and running?

For the Taoiseach's further information, 16 children have been admitted to the mental health section of University Hospital Kerry because there are no child or adolescent beds available in Kerry. That is a national disgrace. When will the Government address these issues?

I do not know the actual facts around the two cases that the Deputy mentioned but clearly these units were built for a purpose. As the Deputy knows, the Minister for Health has addressed the question of incentives for qualified nurses and medical personnel to come back to Ireland. There is the intention to employ, I believe, more than 1,000 this year and quite a number of people have been employed in the medical services run by the HSE during the past 12 months. Clearly, there has to be a programme for people to work in these facilities and for them to be used for the purpose for which they were built. I will advise the Deputy as to what the current state of play is from the HSE perspective. I will arrange to have the Minister of State dealing with mental health provision respond to the Deputy regarding children being placed in adolescent beds in Kerry.