Campaign to prevent Kerry disability facility’s closure

Kerry County Council has heard five separate motions calling for the Government not to “decongregate” 76 people, some of whom are profoundly disabled, from a much-loved community facility in Beaufort.

Parents who had met earlier with HSE officials in Tralee attended the meeting of the council.

Jack Fitzpatrick from Cahersiveen, whose son Bernard, 40, has lived in St Mary of the Angels in Beaufort since he was five, said it’s not that parents fear community living but they fear community “isolation”. Bernard was to be moved to a house in Milltown, Mr Fitzpatrick was told in September.