The Taoiseach will recall that I raised the crisis in respite care with him last Wednesday following the RTÉ "Carers in Crisis" programme. During Leaders' Questions, I made a modest proposal to increase respite care hours by 20%, which would cost €13 million. I also proposed that the Government should provide 2 million additional home-help hours and 2,500 home-care packages at a cost of €72 million. The Taoiseach committed to examine these proposals. I then wrote to him setting these out in more detail. I have yet to receive a reply but I hope that is an indication that he is still considering these proposals. It would make a meaningful long-term difference to the lives of people with disabilities.

Yesterday the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, announced that he had secured an additional €10 million for respite services, which I welcome, particularly as some of it will be allocated to my constituency. According to the 2016 census, more than 20,000 people in Louth and east Meath have a disability. They also have fewer services than other parts of the State. Only nine respite beds are available for adults with intellectual disabilities and there are no emergency services. The Government needs to do a lot of work to rectify this. The new services announced yesterday need to be put in place go gasta. The details of a plan need to be revealed as quickly as possible. The HSE was not able to give us any details this morning.

Yesterday's announcement was long overdue. Some of it is deficient. For example, only one in four full-time carers will be eligible for a free GP-visit card as announced yesterday. That is because the card will be given only to carers in receipt of the carer's allowance. All of these carers should be allocated medical cards.

Last week, my proposition included the provision of home-help hours and home-care packages. There is no mention of this in yesterday's announcement. Perhaps the Taoiseach will get around to this when he eventually gets around to answering my letter. As a doctor, I am sure the Taoiseach is aware the issue of in-home respite hours is crucial for some families. On a number of occasions I have raised with the him the case of Brendan, who has not got any in-home respite hours in the past five months. Incidentally, he got a total of 15 nights' respite in the past year. In another case, Sam, whose mother the Taoiseach has met, has not got respite care since he turned 18. When will they be able to get their respite care? I ask the Taoiseach to outline the timetable for the services announced yesterday. When will he respond to my other proposals?

I thank the Deputy.

I finished on time, a Cheann Comhairle - no waffle.

Spot on. Maith an fear.

As the House may be aware from these interactions, Deputy Adams writes me an awful lot of letters; he is a very prolific pen pal. It takes some time to reply to so many letters.

That is what parliamentarians do.

I will certainly reply to it in the normal course.

That is normal courtesy.

I have not had a chance to see it yet. He will receive an acknowledgement within two weeks and a full reply after that. Everyone is treated equally in that regard. I know the Deputy is a great believer in equality and so he would not want his letter answered any quicker than anyone else's-----

Yes, I would.

-----and it will not be.

I am happy to confirm that the Government announced yesterday an extra €10 million for respite care. That will provide an additional 19,000 respite nights per year for people who need it, which is an important step forward, and nine new dedicated houses for respite will be established throughout 2018, with one in each community health area. The Minister of State with responsibility for disability, Deputy Finian McGrath, from the Independent Alliance part of the Government, has done a huge amount of work on this issue and will provide more details in the coming weeks. That will be contained in the HSE's detailed operational plan, which usually comes out early in the new year.

Home-help hours and home-care packages are matters for the 2018 HSE service plan, which we hope to have ready in a few weeks' time.

It was also announced yesterday that people in receipt of carer's allowance would receive a doctor-visit card as a right. Deputies, who are familiar with the system, will know that the carer's allowance is given to full-time carers and is means tested. I cannot remember the details of the means test off the top of my head, but it is one of the more generous means tests in the social welfare system. Essentially the carer's allowance is geared to people who have had to give up a job in order to care full time. It provides income support they would not otherwise get. It is a positive announcement and an important move forward by the Government that people who are in receipt of carer's allowance will have a doctor-visit card as a right. Respite allows the person who needs care to be cared for but we also need to care for carers themselves. That is why it is important that they should be able to visit their doctor without having to pay.

This is about something I genuinely believe in, which is incremental, sustainable progress. This is not just the end; it is part of what we are doing. Last year, for example, we restored in full the respite care grant, now called the carer's support grant. We increased the carer's allowance for the first time in eight years. We also changed the rules so that when somebody is no longer caring, they continue to get the carer's allowance for 12 weeks to give them time to get their life back in order. Next year, we will announce an extra €10 million for respite, a doctor-visit card for every person receiving carer's allowance as a right and an increase in the carer's allowance again in March. In a sustainable incremental way, I want every year to do two or three significant things that improve the lives of people with disabilities and improve the lives of their carers. That is the commitment the Government is demonstrating and following through on.

The reason I wrote to the Taoiseach was because he was not able to answer my questions. I hope he will do so quickly and I hope he does not send me a "Dear John" letter.

According to a response received last night to a parliamentary question from an Teachta Louise O'Reilly, our health spokesperson, the HSE will have provided 14,293 fewer overnight respite sessions and 591 fewer day respite sessions this year than it did last year. When that is put into the package announced yesterday, the additional €10 million is supposed to provide 19,000 respite nights. In effect, that means the HSE will be providing an additional 4,707 respite sessions over what it provided in 2016.

The Taoiseach should figure that out. That is the way it works out. If that is not accurate, he should tell me, but if it is accurate, does he agree with me that it is not good enough? There is a lot of catching up to be done on this issue. This is about citizens who have rights and who want to be treated as citizens despite the fact that they have disabilities. They need to be given full services, and the Taoiseach's Government needs to fix itself in terms of that function.

As I said in my earlier response, the Minister of State with responsibility for disability affairs, Deputy Finian McGrath, will produce the details of all of this in the next week or so, in part to do with the Health Service Executive, HSE, service plan for 2018 and then the operational plans which happen in the new year.

When I mentioned examples of the incremental progress we are making as a Government, one I forgot to mention is that last year we extended as a right the full medical card to children who have severe disabilities and need care, regardless of their parents' income. As a result of that, an additional 10,000 children became entitled to a full medical card last year and 40,000 children received a medical card this year without any reviews. If anyone is being reasonable in their assessment, they will see that what we are trying to do, now that have fixed the economy, balanced the books and the economy is in a strong place, is to make incremental progress year on year to improve living standards, especially for those who need assistance the most such as carers and people with disabilities. I accept that we are catching up. That is absolutely right. We will catch up and we will make more progress every year for as long as this Government is in office. I have a different philosophy to Deputy Adams, who is a revolutionary socialist. He believes in destroying the system, removing everything, bringing it down to a certain level, and then creating some sort of Utopia.

Will the Taoiseach read about socialism?

I do not believe in that.

Keep the recovery going.

I believe in the philosophy of Prosser and Smith, and I believe in incremental progress. The first thing to do is to put the economy on a sustainable footing, balance the books and then deliver incremental social progress year on year in a way that is sustainable. That is something this Government is doing.