Disability campaigners demand Government action on services

DISABILITY campaigners yesterday threw down a post-Special Olympics challenge to the Government to get off the starting block in safeguarding services and supports for the 120,000 citizens with disabilities.

Sixty groups representing people with a range of physical and intellectual disabilities, as well as mental illness, issued a series of demands on behalf of their members including:

The conversion of community employment schemes to permanent posts to protect 6,000 people under threat of losing their home helps and personal assistants.

The provision of suitable accommodation for more than 1,100 elderly people inappropriately placed in psychiatric hospitals.

Proper accommodation and support for almost 1,000 chronically sick young people.

Introduction of a new ‘cost of disability’ payment of 125 per month.

Support for child carers who are looking after dependent family members at home.

Accessible housing for people with mobility problems.

Disability Federation of Ireland (DFI) chairman John Saunders said the demands were being made in the afterglow of the Special Olympics and were designed to give the Government something to think about over the summer break before they returned to prepare the 2004 budget.

“The Special Olympics has really brought home to Irish society the positive aspects of disability and has shown how people with disability can contribute. The job is to continue that momentum and bring that attitude into Government policy,” he said.

The groups invited all 166 deputies and 60 senators to their gathering in Dublin yesterday. About 60 attended but the only ministers there were junior health minister Ivor Callely and junior finance minister Tom Parlon.

Central to the campaign is the insistence that all services and supports be protected by a new Disability Bill to enshrine the rights of people with disabilities in law.

“When your name is not in the pot, somebody can come along after everybody else has got their fill and say it’s a pity but they are not in a position to look after you this time,” said DFI chief executive John Dolan.

Ann Moran, from Derrygorman outside Westport, Co Mayo, has been a victim of the uncertainties that surround supports for people with disabilities. She was a co-ordinator with the Centre for Independent Living up to last month when her three years on the Community Employment Scheme expired, almost halving her income.

As a wheelchair user, her only income now is the disability allowance of 124.80 a week and she fears she will not be able to afford to run her car any more.

“In my job, I used to go out to visit people with disabilities in their homes. Without my car, I’ll be the reliant one, waiting on people to come to visit me. They’re making me dependent and that doesn’t make sense,” she said.