McCreevy urged not to introduce disabilities cutbacks

The People with Disabilities in Ireland organisation has urged Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy not to introduce further cutbacks in services for disabled people in this year's budget.

The group has called for increased resources to be allocated to disability organisations in the budget.

Chief executive Michael Ringrose said: "The signals are that the budget is going to be a very difficult and hard budget for everybody and we're sending out a signal now to the Government in the hope that they'll take serious heed of what we're saying. That people with disabilities should not be at any end of those cutbacks because they've already been suffering severe disadvantage over the last series of cutbacks."