CUTS will mean a young person receiving a disability allowance will be down €4,576 a year after the budget changes.

DISABLED people have become prisoners in their own homes because of cuts in welfare payments and support services, the Centre for Independent Living has warned.

MORE than €12,000 was spent sprucing up a HSE residential unit for people with intellectual disabilities in the days leading up to a ministerial visit.

MINISTER with responsibility for Disability Kathleen Lynch will tomorrow visit a locked residential institution in Cork city for people with intellectual disabilities.

A NEW national advocacy service for people with disabilities is giving a voice to vulnerable people with disabilities.

Inclusion Ireland is calling on politicians to improve the lives of intellectually disabled people in Ireland.

In the first of a two-part Irish Examiner special investigation, we look at how we treat the most vulnerable in society.

The Taoiseach was accused today of losing compassion and failing to understand what is happening in homes across the country as hundreds of people demonstrated against cuts to disability services.

DISABLED people and their families whose respite support is hanging by a thread are to take to the streets of Dublin this week in a desperate bid to stop further cuts to services.

MORE than 23,000 under 18-year-olds are on a waiting list for speech and language therapy, with almost 4,000 of those waiting for between 12 months and two years.

ABOUT 150 centres offering residential care or respite care to children with disabilities are still not being inspected, as according to the Government “they are not in the care of the state”.

ABOUT 300 people with intellectual disabilities are still languishing in psychiatric hospitals despite Government commitments to move them into community care.

THE true details about neglect and abuse of people with disabilities in residential care will never be known until there is robust inspection and regulation of the services, the head of Inclusion Ireland has warned.

SOCIAL welfare payments will be cut by 4.1%, affecting everyone under pensionable age and raising fears that thousands of younger jobseekers will now flee the country.

A COALITION of agencies supporting people with disabilities have urged the Government to ring-fence funding for the area in the upcoming budget.

ON Thursday representatives of states from around the world will gather to sign an agreement aimed at strengthening the protection of economic, social and cultural rights for individuals.

IN her feature article (September 4), Deirdre Carroll of Inclusion Ireland highlights the State’s neglect of people with intellectual disabilities.

I WELCOME Deirdre Carroll’s call for an inspectorate of intellectual disability services (September 4), a call that has been made repeatedly in recent years by advocates for people with intellectual disabilities but which has unfortunately been greeted with repeated inaction on the part of the Government.

NEW national residential disability care standards will not be given the full force of law because of a lack of funding, the Minister of State with special responsibility for Equality, Disability and Mental Health admitted yesterday.

ANY cuts to carers benefits will force thousands of people “to put their loved ones into State care,” further overcrowding the health service and adding billions to the Exchequer’s expenses.

FIVE disability organisations came together in Dublin yesterday to demand that people with an intellectual disability do not bear the brunt of budget cuts next week.

A new initiative is being launched today, which aims to simplify money matters for people with an intellectual disability.

THERE has been an 8% increase in the number of children registered on the National Intellectual Disability Database in the past four years, a report by the Health Research Board reveals.

DISABILITY groups and campaigners have criticised the long-delayed report into 33 years of child abuse at two Brothers of Charity centres in Galway.

Disability groups are hitting out at charges for long-term care for intellectually disabled people.

PARENTS of children with intellectual disabilities are being pursued for nursing care back payments, averaging about €5,000.

Seemingly from nowhere, Martin Brassil has emerged as one of this country’s rising training talents over the past two years. But, as Declan Colley discovered, the quietly spoken Curragh handler prefers to let his charges do the talking for him.

A COMPLETE absence of standards and inspection in disability services in Ireland is similar to shortfalls in childcare, it was claimed yesterday.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern will today address a major conference of the Catholic Church that is exploring the values inspiring Irish political and social life.

MANY intellectually disabled persons in State-funded residential care are being charged excessive fees, an Oireachtas committee heard yesterday.

The Government squandering of disability services funding has resulted in the longest waiting list for full-time residential services in a decade, it was claimed today.

THOSE working with the poor and the disabled were not at all surprised that a UN report labelled wealthy Ireland as one of the most unequal countries in the developed world. They see the inequality every day.

THE National Association for People with an Intellectual Disability has accused the Government of a “complete failure” to consult with disability groups regarding the implementation of the Disability Bill 2004.

UP TO 7,000 intellectually disabled adults are at risk of abuse because there are no independent inspections of the care homes they live in, disability groups warned yesterday.

By Caroline O’Doherty

THE head of a Dominican church has apologised to an intellectually disabled young man who was told to leave Mass because he was making too much noise.

HEALTH service providers have a responsibility to put in place a long-term care plan for disabled people to spare elderly parents the “terrifying prospect” that there will be no place for them to go, it was claimed yesterday.

RADICAL law reforms are needed to ensure intellectually disabled people have more control over decisions in their lives, Justice Minister Michael McDowell told a conference in Dublin over the weekend.

The National Association for People with Intellectual Disabilities (NAMHI) is calling on the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell to change the law on legal capacity.

MORE THAN 300 people with intellectual disabilities are still in psychiatric institutions even though the Department of Health admits they should not be there.

THE long-awaited and controversial Disability Bill will finally be published tomorrow after a delay of close to three years.

CONDITIONS in some public mental hospitals remain Victorian, while private psychiatric facilities are state-of-the-art, a damning report by the Government’s mental health watchdog has found.