Rural life ‘must include disabled people’

THOUSANDS of people are still being hidden away in old psychiatric wings of our hospitals as well as nursing homes and other care centres when they could be breathing new life into rural communities, a conference heard yesterday.

Planners who shape growth in our villages, towns and cities must try to include such people in our communities.

They shouldn't allow nursing homes to be built in the middle of nowhere, cutting residents and their staff off from the world.

The Government cannot continue to let people "waste away" in inappropriate care, said Disability Federation chief John Dolan.

Local authority staff and the developers of services should be thinking about social as well as physical development of communities when considering planning applications and where to build, he told the National Rural Development Forum annual meeting in Tipperary.

"Everyone has a right to live in a house and in a community. It's not just about moving the most needy or vulnerable in our community from one bed to another," he said.

"We have far too many people in our old mental hospitals who do not need to be there. We wouldn't keep a person in prison a day longer than they needed to be there.

"Yet we have over 1,000 people in mental hospitals around the country, a further 500 with intellectual disabilities in appropriate places and a further 914 which the Department of Health classify as the young chronic sick being inappropriately housed," he said.

Planners are as concerned as anyone about the depopulation of our villages and towns.

"They have to start thinking about where people reside.

"Facilities like nursing homes should be developed in communities with schools, shops, pubs, etc places where people can interact," he said.

"Social houses could be developed in a similar area, creating an interdependent community."

Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Éamon Ó Cuív, said that with the enlargement of the European Union it was vital that Ireland took a pro-active part in shaping the European Agenda towards rural development.

"If we are serious about rural development there is a need at a European level for a radical new approach to rural policies with a much broader agenda than heretofore," he said.

Such policies will have to include a recognition that rural areas must have multi-dimensional development policies and recognition that a total dependence on agriculture will not sustain the population in rural areas.

"We also need clear spatial strategies, ensuring the continued maintenance and growth of rural populations. And we need targeted funding for rural areas as a matter of urgency to ensure that infrastructure deficits in roads, telecommunications, water, public transport etc, do not inhibit rural growth."