Mother of disabled boy to meet council

A desperate mother who was forced to install a padded bedroom for her son to prevent him hurting himself has secured a meeting with authorities about her situation.

Frances Healy, whose son Luke, 14, has special needs, was turned down by Limerick City Council last week for a disabled grants allowance.

However, after going public with her story on Friday, officials from City Hall contacted her about a possible review of her case. The meeting is scheduled for Thursday.

Wiping tears from her eyes, she described how she has battled for her son for the past 14 years to give him with a better quality of life. “The first year broke my heart. It took me a year to accept that Luke had Down’s syndrome. Then I started him at school and I started finding out through health nurses about different services and we got him in with those,” Ms Healy explained from her home in Garryowen.

“Everything was going OK and then I discovered when Luke was four he wasn’t going to come out of a nappy.

“I started asking doctors questions like: ‘Will he ever talk to me and call me mam?’ and I was told the possibility of that happening was no. To this day Luke hasn’t come out of nappies, and he hasn’t called me mam. He hasn’t spoken yet,” Ms Healy said.

Forced to remove her sitting room fireplace and cover most of her council house in soft padding because Luke constantly bangs his head off hard surfaces, Ms Healy, a mother of three, pleaded for a review of her case for financial aid.

Luke requires 24-hour supervision because he suffers from epilepsy, autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and asthma. He also suffers from a condition where he forces his hands down his throat, making himself vomit.

Ms Healy said her friends and neighbours get her through each day. She also praised Luke’s school, St Vincent’s, run by the Daughters of Charity.

However, Ms Healy, 55, admitted she is worried about what the future will bring. “The nappy situation is getting worse. He has chewed on soiled nappies. It’s getting harder to get them in his size.”

She said she used to blame herself for Luke’s suffering. “I cried for a year, wondering what I had done for all this to happen.

“There’s a lot of work in Luke, but the most important thing is that he is my baby, and he’s worth every bit of it.”

Ms Healy said the city council got her padding for her back yard so Luke could go outside safely. However, she said she has spent around €1,000 of her own money creating his padded bedroom and padding doors around the home.

She is in receipt of a weekly payment of €375, which includes her carer’s allowance and lone parent social welfare payment.

“How do I cope? If I don’t laugh and try and be happy I would cry all day long... But I won’t let my son see me like that.”

“It is very hard work. I can’t take it at times. This is very serious and I want to highlight that there are loads of people in my situation and worse off. How the Government can take so much from people like me is a disgrace,” she said.

Council officials, along with Luke’s occupational therapist and social workers, are all due to take part in Thursday’s meeting with Ms Healy.