Disabled people’s rights - State has duty to help all its citizens

YESTERDAY’S landmark High Court settlement, making a regional health board responsible for providing a profoundly disabled nine-year-old boy with the support he needs to live at home with his mother, will be applauded by families of disabled people from one end of the country to the other.

It is a decision that will have profound implications for other families who for years have been denied this kind of help by the State.

Significantly, the development comes at a time when those representing disabled people are fighting an uphill battle for rights-based legislation to be introduced, something the Government is stubbornly resisting.