Adults with intellectual disability are reduced to “couch-surfing” between family members while waiting to access residential care at the Cope Foundation, where pressure on services is so severe that it needs an extra €34m per annum, according to its chief executive.

Cope Foundation is one of those unsung hero organisations that offers support and opportunity to those desperately in need of them.

Despite the uncertainty, the centre's care assistants, social care workers and administration and clerical workers, are still turning up for work every day to care for the centre residents.

The Cope foundation has put out an appeal for extra runners in this year's The Echo Women's Mini Marathon.

The Cope Foundation offers an employment support service which aims to connect young people who have intellectual disabilities with employers. Donal O’Keeffe meets three people who are benefitting from the scheme.

The need to participate, the longing to be involved with others, is as human as breathing.

Families of adults with disabilities are experiencing “a real crisis every single day” due to the lack of residential care places in Cork.

The Cope Foundation has urged volunteers to open their homes to help expand a new model of respite care.

A doctor contracted to provide services to clients of COPE Foundation was paid €123,799 annually, at odds with Department of Health (DOH) salary scales for medical grades.

An advocacy group has warned Cork County Council officials a new streetscape in a West Cork town will make access more difficult for disabled people.

The head of a disability service was summoned to a showdown with watchdogs after staff faced repeated allegations of verbal abuse of vulnerable residents in a care home.

Disability charity Cope Foundation has won Ireland’s first ‘plain English’ award for it’s easy-to-understand website.

An inspection report by health watchdog Hiqa has raised concerns over aspects of care at a centre for people with disabilities in Cork.

The Sunday’s Well Rebels, Ireland’s only Mixed Ability Rugby team, travel to England next week to compete in the first Mixed Ability Rugby World Tournament (MARWT).

Allegations of abuse reported to a centre for people with disabilities in Cork were not investigated or satisfactorily recorded, according to an inspection report by the health watchdog.

YESTERDAY, two events dealing with abuse inflicted on the vulnerable, one at either end of the island, one historical, the other contemporary, brought into question our ability to learn from our mistakes. 

Disability support group, The Cope Foundation, has launched its first campaign to find long-term sustainable jobs for people with intellectual disabilities.

The father of a 14-year-old boy who it was claimed received alleged substandard care while in a respite home over 20 years ago has settled his High Court action.

A new inspection report has found serious defects at a centre operated by the Cope Foundation in Cork, with health watchdog Hiqa asking there be no more admissions there until further notice.

In a recent article Tom Barry TD takes issue with the imagery used in a leaflet distributed by Cork Film Centre to highlight their recent Arts Council funding cut, which threatened to close the centre.

Meet Ireland’s newest champion advocates who are setting out to change the world for the better.

In response to Patrick L O’Brien’s letter (’Charity begins at home’, May 26)) it is a travesty that homelessness in Ireland has risen in recent months. However, there exist a great number of charities working to better the situations of those experiencing homelessness (Focus Ireland, the Simon Community, COPE, Welcome Home, Novas and Depaul Ireland).

WITH recent problems in our charity sector it’s clear that the public are starting to wonder about donating. Can I really blame them?

An organisation that specialises in helping people with intellectual disabilities and autism has closed its hydrotherapy pool following a health scare.

Munster hooker Damien Varley has backed an innovative app which uses music and signs to help children with an intellectual disability find their own voice.

DR STUART NEILSON dislikes tying his shoelaces, walking through crowded streets, and refuses to take off his jumper on sweltering sun holidays because he hates the feeling of air on his bare skin.

A Cork charity with a €59m spend in the city and county said it is continuing to help over 2,000 people “live life to the full”.

You might think that Barcelona and Real Madrid’s Champions League semi-final first legs — with Barca at Bayern Munich tomorrow, and Madrid facing Borussia Dortmund away the following evening — were enough for both clubs to focus on for the moment.

In the green corner weighing in at 13-and-a-half stone, the “Mitchelstown Mauler” seeks an opponent for a heavyweight political bout.

An Irish third-level project designed to assist people with disabilities has gained worldwide recognition.

The attitude toward disability — a term that may well become redundant in favour of “differently abled” — has changed dramatically.

Unlike Cubists or Impressionists, Yvonne Condon doesn’t have to imagine or experiment with an abstract world.

A Cork-based charity which provides a range of services to 2,000 clients with intellectual disabilities went almost €730,000 into the red last year.

The Cope Foundation is to develop a €1.2m “smart” housing scheme in Cork to make independent living more accessible for people with intellectual disabilities.

FORTY years after they helped set up an ICA guild in Cill na Martra, Mary Scriven and Eileen O’Connell were on hand for recent events at which the anniversary was celebrated in a display of cuttings, photographs and craft exhibits.

WHEN Jim Hyland learned that money owed to his 37-year-old autistic son by the state was being held in a central HSE fund, he asked for it to be transferred to his son’s own bank account.

Barcelona president Sandro Rosell has admitted the Catalan club are unwilling to pay Arsenal’s €39.5m valuation of their captain Cesc Fabregas, but says the midfielder is doing “all he can” to join Pep Guardiola’s side.

Arsene Wenger is cautiously optimistic Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas could be fit to play against Barclays Premier League leaders Chelsea next weekend.

South African opposition parties walked out of a parliament session today, accusing the governing African National Congress (ANC) party of trying to silence critics.

South Africa’s parliament elected Jacob Zuma as president today, cheering the astonishing rise of a self-educated teenage goatherder who transformed himself into the leader of Africa’s economic powerhouse.

SOUTH AFRICA’S ruling party leader Jacob Zuma yesterday called for a big turnout for tomorrow’s general elections, which are expected to launch him to the presidency.

SOUTH AFRICAN prosecutors are expected to drop corruption charges against ruling ANC party leader Jacob Zuma, paving the way for him to become state president next month, the Sunday Independent newspaper reported.

DEFECTORS from South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) yesterday launched their new party, naming former defence minister Mosiuoa “Terror” Lekota as leader, shaking up the country’s politics ahead of elections next year.

A HISTORIC Galway city pub is getting into the festive spirit of goodwill by throwing a free Christmas party for local workers whose Scrooge-like bosses have cancelled the annual office knees-up due to the recession.

PRESIDENT Mary McAleese officially opened a €1.65 million sports facility in Cork yesterday to mark the 50th anniversary of Scoil Bernadette special school.