The programme for Government promises to improve the lives of people with disabilities and for the most important people in their lives, their carers. Next Wednesday, from 12.30 p.m. as part of the Enough is Enough campaign, carers will be outside the Convention Centre calling for just that. Concretely, they will be calling for the reopening of adult day services. All around the country carers are screaming out that they are physically and mentally exhausted but they feel that nobody is listening. Will the Government act on its promises? Will it publish definite guidelines for the prompt reopening of home support hours, respite services, adult day services and mental health services? Will it recognise the huge efforts of carers which save the State over €10 billion per annum and raise carer's allowance and carer's benefit? Will it abolish the means test for carers and suspend reviews of carer's allowance? Will it ensure that people with disabilities can legally demand their rights by immediately commencing the ratification of the optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities?

I call Deputy Martin Kenny on the same issue.

I want to raise with the Taoiseach the issue of adults with intellectual disabilities who are at home with elderly parents who, in many cases, are unable to cope. This situation has continued through the pandemic. Many people around the country are at their wits end in regard to what to do. Day care services and respite care services have been taken away. Across my constituency, and I am sure across the country as a whole, carers and families who are caring for adults in such circumstances need to see efforts being made by Government to put these services back in place immediately.

I call Deputy Cronin on the same issue.

Go raibh maith agat. I want to raise the promised legislation for people living with intellectual disabilities. Under the previous Government these became the new dispossessed. We cannot allow that to become permanent. Mothers in north Kildare have contacted me about their children with intellectual disabilities, the lack of respite services and unacceptable delays in vital health services. The Government signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities two year ago. Since then, that signature has been moot and mute. The programme for Government promises to ratify the optional protocol, which would mean that parents with children with intellectual disabilities would not have to go to war every day with the State. It would allow them to vindicate their children's rights. When will the Government ratify the optional protocol?

The Deputies asked a number of questions. On the impact of Covid-19, it has been devastating on many families and sectors. Our schools closed for a number of months as a result of Covid-19 and adult disability services also effectively closed in terms of people being able to attend day centres and various other services.

As we know, congregated numbers in indoor settings are problematic in respect of Covid. That said, we have to work to make such services and centres available to adults with intellectual disabilities. I will talk to the Ministers involved and to the service providers to see what the challenges are in enabling the provision of some level of services for those who were affected by this. That is a fair point and it is important to say.

In terms of children and special needs in general, and especially in respect of special education, to respond to Deputy Cronin's point, it is very important that we avoid adversarial approaches. Children, as a right, should have the appropriate school placements available to them and the proper planning in advance should take place. I am working with the Minister for Education and Skills in that regard. In my view, we must introduce a greater degree of advocacy for the child within the system as it operates.