Coalition at odds over disability cuts U-turn

Opposition parties accused the Government of descending into farce last night as ministers flatly contradicted each other on whether or not the coalition had U-turned on disability cuts.

Despite Health Minister James Reilly being forced into an embarrassing climb-down over plans to slash €10m worth of personal assistance care for disabled and elderly people, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn denied it amounted to a row-back.

His intervention was in sharp contrast to junior health minister Roisín Shortall who welcomed the U-turn as she took another swipe at her boss Dr Reilly for his poor communication abilities.

Ms Shortall, who is known to have a difficult relationship with Dr Reilly and who was only given an hour’s notice of the cuts announcement, said: “I very much welcome the decision that has been taken to revisit these cuts. It was unfortunate that they were announced in the first place and I welcome the fact the Government has changed its position on that now. Yes there was poor communication,” she said.

However, Mr Quinn insisted no such U-turn had taken place.

Referring to the emotionally- charged demonstration outside Government Buildings by disabled people, he told TV3: “There has been a budget over- run for this year, there is an amount of money available to be allocated in the area of disability and it was looking at reducing that amount of money for future clients, not for existing clients. And somewhere in that communication, different people heard different things, and that resulted in their presence outside Government Buildings.”

Fianna Fáil’s health spokesperson Dara Calleary ridiculed the Education Minister’s take on events: “That is absolutely incredulous. These cuts were announced to the organisations involved, now, because of forcing people to protest and sleep out overnight they are saying this was not announced. This has been a huge U-turn.”

Protesters are still angry that a further €17m worth of cuts to frontline services like home help care are still part of the €130m overall cost cutting package released by the Coalition last week.

Demands for Dr Reilly to publicly apologise to disabled people over the distress his cuts threat caused them have intensified.

Sinn Féin health spokesperson Caoimghín Ó Caoláin said the climb-down underlined the “chaotic management” of the HSE by Dr Reilly.

Ms Shortall said it was now time for the Government to concentrate on the “the big ticket items” in health, saying the cost of medicine was the “number one” driver of cost overruns in the HSE.