Bertie, you have the cash. Spend it on our most disadvantaged people

By Fergus Finlay THERE’S a woman called Mary Kinsella.

She's a poet, and she has a number of disabilities.

The fact that she has spent much of her life in hospital, and now lives in a group home in Co Galway, hasn't diminished her appreciation of life.

She has a sparkle when you meet her not unusual, actually, in people with disabilities.

This is one of her poems, The Debate.

The debate last night,

gave me a fright,

As I watched Michael and Bertie

pretend they cared.

They talked and talked

about a better life,

Free of crime, debt and guilt.

One where we won't have to queue

to get under our hospital bed quilts.

As I sat on my bed

I had a pain in my head

So I went to sleep

and dreamed up my own government.

I love that last line. Every time I get involved in disability issues, I find myself wishing that the disability movement could dream up their own government.

You're reading this on Tuesday morning. This afternoon there will be a large protest outside the Dáil, involving people with disabilities from all around the country.

It won't be the first this year, but it takes place just a few days before the Special Olympics are due to begin.

Later in the day, there will be a row inside the Dáil about the issues involved, issues I'll spell out in a moment.

The Taoiseach will defuse the row by telling the Dáil he has been having a major rethink about the cutbacks as they affect people with disabilities, and intends to ensure that a proper plan is put in place, starting with, say, €50m in the current year to avert the series of crises building up around the country ...

Except, unless I'm totally wrong, the Taoiseach won't do the last bit.

Instead he will waffle about how nobody except him gives two hells (whatever that means) about disadvantage and disability.

I would love to be proved wrong, but I don't believe this government has the wit or the heart to recognise that whatever case could be made for tough controls on public spending and standing up to powerful lobbies, there's an even stronger case for making an exception in the case of the most vulnerable groups in Irish society, who have no lobby at all to fight for them.

The irony is that even if they have neither wit nor heart, this government has the money. In fact since the end of April they've been sitting on a fund of cash, known as the Dormant Accounts Fund, with approximately 200m in it.

That fund comes from the banks and other financial institutions, which for years have been holding unclaimed money in dormant accounts and such things as unclaimed life insurance policies.

This is the first year that the money held in such accounts has been taken out of the financial institutions and put into this dormant funds account, and so the 200m is the largest "deposit" the account will ever see.

However, the fund will grow each year as more accounts are added to it, and the fund will also be the subject of an investment plan.

A certain amount of the money will have to be set aside, because people who own dormant accounts will retain a right to get their own money back.

But it is reasonable to assume that up to three quarters of the money will never be claimed.

There is, therefore, more than €150m available right now. The act setting up this fund specifies that it should be spent on projects aimed at combating disadvantage in the community, and the minister for finance can specify other objectives as he wishes.

In other words, without breaching any of the ludicrous principles they have established in relation to public spending, the government has the freedom right now to direct that there should be an immediate disbursement from the fund to deal with emergencies in the disability area.

And there are emergencies aplenty. If the Government had the courage to publish their own waiting lists (I believe that although they are ready for printing, they have been hidden away until the Special Olympics are safely over) we would see that the queues for residential and day services have grown significantly throughout the latter years of the Celtic Tiger.

Hundreds of families throughout the country have been told that there are simply no services available for their school-leaving children from this September on.

Hundreds more parents are involved in daily bureaucratic battles to provide medical and other necessities for their offspring with severe disabilities (some of whom are of adult age) still living at home.

AT least €50m is needed right now to prevent that situation getting worse. Planning a permanent end to it will demand more, and no case can be made for refusing to invest the extra.

But with €150m sitting in an account that is effectively controlled by the government, it would be a gross scandal if they refused to deal with the most urgent needs now, out of money designed specifically for that purpose and which is there in abundance.

I have to be honest. I don't like the idea of building a civilised approach to people with disabilities on the back of a fund intended for charitable purposes.

People with disabilities have been damaged by our national perception of them as charity cases over the years.

Charity is what keeps people with disabilities at the bottom of the queue that's why the demand for rights-based legislation is so high on the disability movement's agenda, and why it will stay there until the promised rights-based Disability Bill is delivered.

But even though I would prefer to see a systematic exchequer response, the dormant accounts fund would help right now.

The overpowering need is right now, and the money is there right now.

If the Taoiseach and his government want to enjoy the Special Olympics (as I hope they do, and that puts me in a minority of the disability movement) and if they want to acknowledge the huge leap in awareness about disability issues to which Special Olympics has made a significant contribution, they will seize the moment. Right now.

That leap in awareness means that people throughout Ireland now recognise what disability is a set of barriers which people with disabilities have to climb. And more often than not, those barriers are erected by us.

Awareness means recognising that we have a role in tearing the barriers down.

And it means recognising that behind the disability there's always a person the person whom Mary Kinsella in another poem stunningly calls "The person in me".

I am an ordinary person,

I just have special needs,

I can love like any other,

Just look into my heart and see.

I do not look for pity,

All I need is a smile,

Or just a friendly hand,

To reach out once in a while.

So if you need a friend to lean on,

And I'm sure you often do,

Don't be afraid to call my name,

You'll find a person just like you.