State ‘exported’ 55 people with intellectual disabilities, report says

PEOPLE with intellectual disabilities have been “exiled” to agencies outside of Ireland for the past 30 years and continue to be “ignored” in the provision of mental health services, according to a report.

The damning study — published to coincide with the fifth anniversary of A Vision for Change, a policy document drawn up to reform mental health services in Ireland — concludes the provision of mental health services for people with an intellectual disability (ID) continues to require “immediate prioritisation” by the HSE as it has not been afforded “any discernible concern”.

Excluded, Expelled and Exported: The citizens we’ve ignored and those we’ve exiled, which is published by The College of Psychiatry of Ireland, reveals that over the past 30 years at least €30 million has been spent on placing people in other jurisdictions.

It reveals 55 Irish people with an intellectual disability — some of whom have been in the placements for decades — are in specialist services outside of the state.

Some of those placements cost up to €300,000 annually. The latest figure is an increase of 20 people — or 57% — since A Vision for Change was published.

According to the report, the fact that 75% of the placements are in the North refutes the argument that there is not the critical mass for such specialist service provision here.

Additionally, it is estimated at least 137 more people with intellectual disability require specialist residential services that are not available. The CPsychI maintains this is an “unacceptable and unsustainable” situation.

“As we export people with intellectual disability for placement and treatment, individual people and their families may get a service, but no level of national expertise builds up,” the report states.

“Clearly, it is not rational or humane but rather ad hoc and inequitable and clearly, many people get no service at all.”

The data comes from a HSE freedom of information request, which did not include information on people who had previously been placed out of the state and who had returned during or prior to 2010. Therefore, the costs are likely to be under-estimated.

The data shows that the longest placement outside of Ireland is of a person who has been in the United States since 1981.

The cost of the placements differ dramatically, but the overall annual cost of placing all 55 people who are currently in residential care out of state is €5m.

The annual cost of placement for 20 individuals is less than €50,000.

For a further 20 individuals it is between €50,000 and €100,000.

In six cases the cost is €100,000-€200,000, in seven cases it is €200,000-€300,000 and in one case the annual cost is more than €300,000.

However, as the report’s authors point out, the “export of Irish citizens comes at a considerable financial cost as well as human cost” as placements outside of the state dislodge vulnerable people with an intellectual disability from their families and local communities.