My message to the next Dáil: Fergus Finlay — give people with a disability the ability to live a full life

Tens of billions of euro is spent chaotically by a number of government departments and hundreds of agencies with no transparency, very little accountability, and no real direction

Billions of euro are spent every year on limited education for students with additional needs — for thousands of those students, especially if they have an intellectual disability, that education stops abruptly at the age of eighteen.

When I started working in politics, people with disabilities depended on charity. They were labelled, seen as sick, and dependent, to be hidden away. They weren’t seen as full equal Irish citizens who had to confront barriers that we had put in their way. Maybe things have moved on a little bit since those days, but I often wonder how much.

In the years I’m talking about, several pieces of legislation might have made a difference. The one on education was never properly commenced, the Assisted Decision Making Act has yet to make any real impact, and the other one, the Disability Act of 2005, may just be the worst piece of legislation ever crafted. It makes the lives of people with disabilities, and their families, immeasurably worse.