State ignores people with disabilities

I HAVE to take issue with Fergus Finlay’s column headlined ‘Aisling’s story shows how special people are doing it for themselves’ (Irish Examiner, September 19).

While I have no wish to denigrate any progress made by special people in determining outcomes for themselves, it is simply not true to say “they’re well on the way to be being able to protest on their own behalf now”. It may be true for some but certainly not all, and definitely not the majority.

The claim appears not to include at all those individuals who are more seriously dependent and a great number of those who, for lack of opportunity and appropriate supports, are prevented from meaningful forms of self-determination, because of the badly underfunded and administered lottery that is State provision for people with disability.