Disabled groups’ funding fears

DARRAGH Moore suffers from multiple sclerosis.

He fears he will never get the chance to move into his new home if the Government fails to live up to its commitment to prioritise the interests of people with disabilities.

“I have been offered a house in Greystones, Co Wicklow. Everything I have owned in my life of 39 years is there now but the money to pay the carers I need to make it my home has not been allocated,” said Darragh.

The former public relations executive is living in supported accommodation provided by Cheshire Ireland in Blackrock, Co Dublin.

“I have been lucky to be offered the apartment at Blackrock Barrett Cheshire but it is temporary and I have been living out of a bag for four months.”

Darragh, who was diagnosed with MS in 2002, is confined to a wheelchair and now fears he will never get the chance to have his own home and start to live his life again.

The Disability Federation of Ireland told the joint Oireachtas committee on health and children yesterday that disability was enough of a vulnerability without adding the fear and burden of service cutbacks.

The federation’s chief executive, John Dolan, told the committee that the HSE had already imposed a 1% cut on all funding to disability services that amounted to €25 million. “This is robbing one area to bail out another area,” he said.

The federation expects that the €50m allocated in the December budget will be used to address spending overruns elsewhere in the health services.

“Disability services could lose €75m this year alone. This is deplorable,” he said.

The federation is urging the Government to maintain all of its commitments to the disability sector and to the 400,000 people to experience some level of disability, as well as to their carers and families.

Secretary to the Genetic and Rare Disorders Organisation Judy Windle said it was concerned that there had been a 20% cut in funding to the National Centre for Medical Genetics at Our Lady’s Hospital in Crumlin, Dublin

The organisation fears that further cuts in staff members planned will lead to vital services being curtailed.

St Michael’s House chief executive Paul Ledwidge said he was due to attend a meeting at which it had to decide the future of 16 people whose parents are dead and for whom there was no HSE funding.