Dear Enda, please don’t cut our lifeline

Dear Enda Kenny, Eamon Gilmore, Michael Noonan, and all TDs of who are voting in favour of cutting the carers’ respite pay.

My name is Pat O’Mahony. I write to you with a heavy heart, and the concern of a man who is caring for my beloved wife of 30 years, Margaret — a mum of four, a music fanatic, a polio survivor who can no longer look after herself.

I am her hands and legs since her post-polio syndrome (PPS) robbed her of what is taken for granted 20 years ago. Margaret had polio when she was a five-months-old baby. She partially recovered, became employed, paid her PRSI and taxes for many years. But PPS struck in her 40s.