Parents protest disabled centre cuts

SEAMUS COWMAN never thought it would come to this – parading his severely disabled daughter in a protest against health spending cutbacks.

“It’s awful that we have to resort to this but it is the only way we can show how desperate we have become,” he said.

The protest of more than 100 parents took place yesterday evening on the Navan Road in Dublin, just outside the St Vincent’s Centre, which is run by the Daughters of Charity.

Seamus, from Castleknock, Dublin, pushed his 18-year-old wheelchair-bound daughter, Natasha, the oldest of four children in his family.

He explained many more parents were unable to join the march due to the demands of their disabled children. At the moment the respite care available at the centre means the Cowmans have about eight nights free from their daughter who needs constant care.

Because of budget shortfalls and cost over-runs the centre is now planning to cut available respite care by almost half. Other cutbacks are also being considered.

“Cutting respite care is the cruellest blow parents like me can receive. If my daughter was put in full-time residential care it will cost the State at least €55,000 per year. I am doing that at home for far less ,” he said.

Walter Freyne, the Daughters of Charity’s director of services for persons with intellectual disability, said he sympathised with the parents but had no option but to reduce available respite care at the centre by 40% from June. Cutbacks in day services were also being considered.

“I sympathise with the parents and wish there was another way,” he said.

Mr Freyne, who met around 200 parents before Easter, told them his budget for the year was down 2.5m What was really needed was disability legislation to establish the rights of people with disabilities to services Shay Fehilly, who has a child in residential care at the centre, in Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s constituency, said they were assuming Mr Ahern was not aware of what was happening.