I raise an issue with the Taoiseach on which I would appreciate his direct intervention. It concerns people with intellectual disabilities. We are dealing with more than a few hundred people in this case. I appreciate that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is present to hear this as well. I am asking the Taoiseach and the Minister of State to go out and meet the people involved. Can the Taoiseach imagine that in the middle of a pandemic we have families and individuals with intellectual disabilities protesting outside? Can he imagine that they are the first group, during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, that has come to protest outside our national Parliament? What is that telling us?

I have raised this issue three weeks in a row now. Granted, the two previous occasions were with the Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Varadkar, and on the second occasion, he delegated to the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte. We are not going to leave these people behind; we are currently leaving them behind. It is completely and utterly unacceptable. We live in a republic and we must treat everybody equally. Most of all, we, as legislators in our national Parliament, and the Government need to ensure that our most vulnerable people during this crisis are protected at all costs - and, by god, these are our most vulnerable people. I have spoken with the families. Enough is Enough is the banner under which they are protesting outside. I ask the Taoiseach and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, to go out and meet them. Please surprise me and go and do that. Please do that because I think the Taoiseach needs to hear their stories.

The issue here is that these people have been forgotten about. They have had no day services and they are losing the will to live. They have no stimulation. Routine is everything in their lives. My friend, Philip Kelly, who is no relation and whom I met here in Dublin, asked me to ask the Taoiseach to allow him to go back to work. He calls his day service "work". He makes his contribution. I could talk also about Leah, for whom every day feels like Groundhog Day; or Darragh, who cannot understand or necessarily remember how the services were being provided and now the differential; or Stephen, whose parents believe he is developing habits they are worried about; or Padraig, who says his life has been turned upside down; or Alan, who feels very much that he is being discriminated against and treated very badly. These people and their families are being discriminated against and left behind.

We have had a reopening roadmap set out for our schools. The same timelines must be provided for the people protesting outside. Will the Taoiseach commit to that today? Having raised this issue, which I am passionate about, I do not want to go out to the people outside and say the Minister issued a statement last night, all of a sudden, and that from 4 August, we will know the dates for reopening. I will do so, however. I want to know when the services will fully reopen, in the same way we are treating everybody else in education. I want to know when these people will get appropriate accommodation and staff and when the staff who have been transferred to residential care facilities will be place in day services again.

The Deputy's time is up.

These are the most vulnerable people. This is not a political issue for me. These are the most vulnerable people in our society and the Taoiseach and I have a duty to protect them. I ask the Taoiseach to give us dates for the reopening of their services and a proper plan to re-establish those services so that we can tell them outside later.

I thank Deputy Kelly for raising this issue. I know he does so in a genuine way and I agree with much of what he has said. I am not happy that there is not a specific timelined roadmap that I have yet seen for the restoration and reopening of disability day services. The Deputy can tell Philip, Leah, Darragh, Stephen, Padraig and Alan that I am working with the Minister for Health, the Minister of State and the Department of Health to get this moving. I do not think it acceptable that the services are not reopen at this stage.

Initially, in March, as the Deputy will appreciate, all services were shut down because of the pandemic. I am told by the Department that the service providers are working to get day services ready to reopen safely and in line with public health guidance. I am told that adult day services will gradually resume during August but I want more specifics than that. We have also made it clear that the earlier HSE efficiency savings aspect has been put to one side. The HSE is apparently engaged with the service providers with a view to identifying and validating business cases from those providers for additional funding to support the reopening of services. I want that accelerated quickly. The Government provided another €2 billion to the Department of Health for service funding to deal with Covid-19 pandemic health funding issues. I believe the wherewithal is there to facilitate the return and resumption of these services.

The HSE has confirmed that no provider has informed it that services will not resume in August. Again, what I want is a timelined specific response as to when all the services plan to reopen and commencement dates in relation to same. An information portal, which will contain the dates on which the 966 disability day service locations will reopen, is being developed. I understand that after 4 August, service users and their families will be able to access this information on www.hse.ie/newdirections and we will send that out. The Deputy's point is well made. I am not arguing with him in any shape or form and I get the necessity of getting these services restored in a meaningful way for those who use them.

I do not doubt the Taoiseach's sincerity on this issue. I will say a few things of which the Taoiseach might take note. I have read the letters from service providers and some of them will not be reopening in August. Many of them will open in August but not to the scale required. I am glad that the Taoiseach has now verified that the €20 million will not be cut and that sneaky cut is gone. I ask him and the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, to look into this matter specifically and ensure that service provision that is so desperately needed is fully rolled out in August. There are transport, accommodation and staffing issues. All the same issues apply in this area as apply for the reopening of schools. No effort has been made and there is no plan in place.

I would know if a plan is in place because I have spoken at length to people across the whole country, including people from the Taoiseach's own county. They are not receiving any form of validation from their service providers that they will be up and running next month. We need a plan to be published on 4 August and it must not only state that service provision will come back on some date but that services will be fully restored. People need and deserve those services in the same way that schoolchildren need and deserve the reopening of schools. These are our most vulnerable citizens.

I agree with the Deputy. I met the Minister for Health and his Secretary General yesterday evening in the aftermath of a Cabinet sub-committee meeting about health generally.

Did the Taoiseach discuss this matter with them?

I did; that is the point. I asked for a proper response including a timeline for when services will be restored. Some 19,000 people are affected by this issue and they deserve the restoration of services, as the Deputy said, in the same way as children deserve the reopening of schools and so on. I will keep on top of this until I get satisfactory responses. I do not think the necessary clarity exists now but engagement is under way. I think the HSE is working with the service providers, to be fair, but I will keep in touch with Deputy Kelly and other Deputies about this issue. I take the points that the Deputy has made about his understanding of what is happening on the ground in respect of certain services but I am told that after 4 August, information will be available for all involved. I want to see a match between the statements that are made and the reality on the ground.