Economic crisis ‘an excuse to cut social services’

BECAUSE I have been a volunteer on the Hope Project helpline since 1996 I have learned what is happening in services to children and adults with special needs all over the country.

Having this perspective, I would like to make some comments about the McCarthy report and An Bord Snip.

For the three decades that I have been involved, successive governments of all party persuasions have denied, cut, begrudged funds to disabled people for essential services, treatments, equipment and adaptations on the basis of “scarce resources”. Even in the Celtic Tiger years, we in the Hope Project, like every other disability and carers’ group, were battling for the basics.