Speaking at a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Disability Issues, Professor Roy McConkey, of the Institute of Nursing and Health Research at the University of Ulster, said there were more than 4 000 people with intellectual disabilities living in collective settings in Ireland in 2007.

By 2017, that had fallen to just under a third, he added.

“If it took 10 years to achieve the 30% reduction, if it is not accelerated, it will take another 20 years – 2040 – before collective care is confined to history in Ireland. Can we really afford to wait that long? he added.

Professor McConkey said there were consequences associated with living in a group, such as a greater risk of abuse, a greater risk of contracting disease and a younger age of death.

Intellectual disabilities

Professor Gautam Gulati, University of Limerick, expressed concern over the high proportion of people in prison, homeless and in the direct care system with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities.

Almost one in three people in Irish prisons test positive for intellectual disability, Professor Gulati said, while the rate of mental illness in prison is four times that of the general population.

“We have to make sure that Irish prisons do not appear as places of assembly,” he added.

Disability activist Annmarie Flanagan said there was a need for a “paradigm shift” to see people with disabilities as rights holders.

She said current policies have forced people with disabilities to feel “downtrodden and depressed”, adding that there is a need to legislate for personal assistance for these people.

Lynn Fitzpatrick, whose brother Bernard has lived in a residential setting for 40 years, said there should be a choice for these people, including the option of living in an institution.

Bernard has lived a “full and meaningful life,” she said, and a general policy to remove these parameters “has failed some people badly.”