Disability issue is still unresolved

CREDIT where it is due. The Minister for Finance’s inclusion in his budget of €900m over 2006-09 for services for people with disability and their carers is warmly to be welcomed.

The fact that this was Mr Cowen’s first budget, and that the package was an overdue recognition of the serious neglect of this vulnerable sector, is further to his credit.

Mr Cowen came from the Department of Foreign Affairs, where issues of human rights are taken seriously, and one would hope that the same approach will be reflected in his wider thinking.