Government’s defence of respite care cut rings hollow

The Government’s insistence that the decision to significantly cut the respite care grant was necessary and unavoidable rings hollow when you consider that it has, in the same budget, forked out a colossal €59.2m to the horse and greyhound racing sector.

What a bizarre sense of priorities. The Fine Gael-Labour coalition must have a political death wish if it persists in this worse than Scrooge-like behaviour, ravaging the lives of the most vulnerable people on this island while pouring precious funds into gambling-relating industries that deserve not one cent of taxpayers’ money.

Even Scrooge didn’t go that far as these Merchants of Misery. He was just miserly and anti-social. Our Government, by contrast, has seemingly gone out of its way to exacerbate the ordeal of respite care recipients and their carers, as if they didn’t face enough challenges.

These politicians should go down in history for having managed to reverse the Robin Hood principle: They have taken from those most in need and redistributed financial resources to ... the bloodstock industry!

Does gambling on horses and greyhounds rate higher with them than people whose lives depend so profoundly on the support and loving care of their fellow human beings?

John Fitzgerald

Callan

Co Kilkenny