Intellectual disability - Hypocrisy of the HSE

FOR 30 years or more, Ireland has engaged in the shameful practice of exporting people with an intellectual disability. This appalling treatment of the victims of disability is highlighted in a damning paper from the College of Psychiatry of Ireland.

Effectively, citizens have been “exported, exiled and excluded” to services outside of Ireland. That means successive regimes are guilty of an abysmal failure to build up a body of national expertise to deal with the complex difficulties of the disabled.

Coming on the fifth anniversary of A Vision for Change, which outlined ways of reforming mental health services, the report exposes the hypocrisy of the HSE which has promised much but delivered little. Not pulling punches, the document accuses the HSE of not affording “any discernible concern” on the question of providing mental health services for people with intellectual disability. This is an aspect of Irish life where action must be prioritised.