Fergus Finlay: Do we want to live in an ugly state where only money matters?

'There is no example in the history of the world where an economy has gone bankrupt by setting out to apply principles of justice to its dealings with its citizens.'

We live, sometimes, in an ugly State. I’ve written that here before on a few occasions, and I find myself sometimes despairing about whether it’s something that can ever be fixed. It was borne in on me once again when I read my colleague Mick Clifford’s riveting article on Saturday about the way we have treated disabled drivers for years. The work of bean counters and their political masters, he called it.

You could give dozens of other examples to prove that Mick is right. The treatment of families looking for additional educational resources for a child with autism. The treatment of elderly people (and their families) who cannot find a place in a public nursing home and have to “go private” because they have no choice. The treatment of people who have been sexually abused in our primary care system. The treatment of people with disabilities whose allowances are promptly robbed from them the minute they go into a high-support residential situation. The treatment of people whose lives were devastated by thalidomide.