RTÉ report on care abuses: Enough talk, it’s time to take action

There are few events in anyone’s life as demanding emotionally, as unnerving and undermining, as the decision faced by the parents and siblings of a child with intellectual disabilities when they realise they can no longer care for their child in their home. Commitment and unquestioning love are defeated by the hard realities of day-to-day life.

A weak and vulnerable person, usually a child, their own flesh and blood, must be entrusted to the kindness of complete strangers and be placed in full-time care, sometimes a long way from the family home.

Thankfully few of us will ever face such a difficult decision, one that requires a degree of trust in our fellow man and our health services that is often hard to justify, much less sustain.