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Eeffing thieving bastards – you’d actually take money from the disabled?
Read more about: Disabilities, Health
I read this piece by Fergus Finlay in Tuesday’s Examiner* and I was positively seething afterwards. I would urge everyone to read Fergus’s piece and to raise this on the doorsteps with any and all government reps who will be calling over the coming weeks.
My sister, who is a year, a month and a day younger than me, is intellectually disabled (as if she didn’t have enough to put up with being my sister) and lives quite happily in Killarney, in sheltered housing managed by the Kerry Parents and Friends of the Mentally Handicapped who do a fine job trying to ensure that people in Kerry can live as independently and fulfilling a life as possible. Finding a place close to home was a process of years of fighting mainly on the part of my mother dealing with the various bureaucracies of the state, during which she was placed in Devlin, Co. Westmeath, Mayfield Co. Cork, Tralee and now Killarney.
It now appears that the department of health (which has historically dropped the ball on supports for those with disabilities) is planning to implement the same regime of charges for those with disabilities as for the pensioners in residential care. Which means they will charge disabled people for living in residential settings. And charge them out of their disabled person’s maintenance allowance. The DPMA is currently €184 per week which is less than an old age non-contributory pension and about the same as the dole. So if you are on the dole, and live away from home the state will pay you a rent supplement but if you make the same attempt to live independently as a disabled person the state will charge you for the pleasure? And, get this, the state is also planning to apply this new regime retrospectively! They are right now sending bills to the parents of people with disabilities looking for back payments. Can you frakking believe it?
You know one of the most stressful things for parents of someone with a disability is the ever present thought of what will happen when you’re gone. This is someone that you love with all your heart but you know that unlike your other children who you will also worry about (worrying seeming to be in the very nature of parenting, and is something that you don’t realise until you become a parent yourself or see friends become parents) that your disabled child won’t ever be able to fend for themselves completely and they will always need someone to be looking out for them. And when you’re gone you hope that your community will care for them and the state which is the community writ large and the mechanism for expressing that care will do what it can.
I actually genuinely thought that Cowen’s efforts, particularly in his budgets , were the sign that the issue of treating people with disabilities fairly, and supporting those organisations that work in the area, was now completely part of the mainstream of Irish political life. I thought despite all the other differences I might have with the guy that here is someone that gets it.
I can tell you now that anyone whether from the revenue or the department of health who tries to take or takes by sleight of hand money from my sister will find me on their door beating their frakking head in with whatever comes to hand. When it comes to my sister I will happily get all Timothy McVeigh on you and your place of work.
As Fergus points out unlike the elderly those with disability will almost certainly never have the chance to be members of the work force and accrue money and assets that might be put into paying for their care. Again, I would urge people to read Fergus’s piece as he manages to put it much better than I do.
* The examiner has in the last few years become my alternate to the Irish Times, in large part because you can’t depend on the Independent to get the days of the week right.
This is just horrible. I missed Finlay’s piece, so thanks for highlighting it, but your own piece is powerful enough, Dan.
Thanks for raising this Dan – the NDA are blasting us with radio ads about how great things are going to be for those of us with disabilities under the new plans (conviently just before an election) however with this robbery and the huge waiting lists for services it’s a pile of rubbish)!
Reading your piece and also Fergus’s piece is an eye opener.
“People with an intellectual disability, if the truth be told, are poor. Among the poorest of our poor. And they are often vulnerable. They’re even more vulnerable now because the Government that presided over the Special Olympic World Games has decided to bring in charges, to take away half of the income of people with an intellectual disability. And to add insult to injury, our Government is sending them bills looking for back-money — several thousands of euro in some cases.” – Fergus Finlay
The fact that what they’re looking to take half of is as Fergus puts “the princely sum of €184 a week” is even more shocking. I knew that this government didn’t care about the elder given the Leas Cross affair but I genuinely thought that after the good work of Mary Davis and the Special Olympics that maybe they had understood that disabilities don’t exist – people may be differently able but that in this modern world we can understand, accept and accomodate this in a caring, understanding but enlighten manner.
I don’t think any rationale, free thinking person can accept this state of affairs and rather than make this political, I think that the people in charge reverse this now. PERIOD. Its not like the coffers of the State aren’t able to accomodate this nor or people likely to object to this over other more self indulgent promises that we’ll hear in the upcoming weeks for the elections.
It may well be that this issue (and other many other issues no doubt) gets lost in the hoopla over the start of the election campaign, but I believe that Fergus’s piece highlights the complete lack of discussion or opportunity for debate about this change.
your fucking jokeing me!!! Im on disability over my hearing, but I dont pay rent allowance, is this going to affect me if i want to get rent allowance?? If it is, Im not going to let that go lightly, fecking polititions! I swear to god, I have no idea how Ireland got to were it is, with the polititions and government we have! so tell me, who do I write to to tear strips off????
not only that,but are they only targeting people with ‘learning’ disabilities?? what about the rest of us who are on disability and have the intellegence to stand up to this, and know how heartless it is, they are targeting those who know, no better, because the polititions are nothing more than cowards! I find it hillarious how this system has turned out, Mary Harney deservs to choke on her ‘Hand Made Choclates’!! she is supposed to be a PD of which once upon a time were respected! but now she is living out of the F, Fails pocket, why??? MONEY!! and that is obviously how they make their money, take money from the poor and make them even poorer! im sickened!
Lette
You won’t be affected – this affects those in residential settings and not just people with intellectual disabilities – those with physical disability, mental health support needs, brain injury etc. who are living in such spaces are also going to be affected.
you are missing the point!! I DONT CARE ABOUT ME!!! Im agreeing with the above post and making a point that they only seem to be targeting those who dont know any better!! its a Disgrace!! people in resadential care are there for a reason!, thats all im saying, they should leave them alone, and quit disgracing themselves with their bully boy tactics!!
I hope you dont mind dan, Iv linked you blog with my recent blog post about this. if you have a problem let me know, i can take it down.
Lette, no problem at all. The more people that talk about it and reference it the more chance it won’t get lost in the hype over the election process.
yeah….that election!! I hope the people see sence this time round and vote a decent party to stand for us!
We need to decide what is and priority and what isn’t. This just isn’t.
Class sizes. Transportation. Efficiency in Health Service delivery. Those are at least three issues that I can think of that come ahead of this one. Also, in your blog you mention how residential care doesn’t exactly grow on trees. I’d suggest we’d want to be in the situation where access to residential care was actually open to anyone who needs it before we felt it necessary to make it totally free to a recipient who has an income.
In the mean time, why shouldn’t people in residential care contribute towards their own maintenance? Particularly if the allowance is a state benefit, which makes the whole transaction a bit circular? This is the typical kind of tear-jerking irrelevance that nets us a political system incapable of engaging with the realities of Irish life. Its all mock shock and no substance, like the various ‘keep our dirty old hospitals open for jobs, and we’ll go to a real hospital when we’re really sick and wonder why there’s a queue’ campaigns.
schuhart, yet another of our untraceable anonymous friends, can you explain to me who exactly it is that is not in receipt of an income, since you evidently view all forms of social welfare payment as a form of income, that should be a priority for free access to residential care?
As for your circular argument surplus we should have people with large scale housing where we can provide them with heat and food in a cost effective manner. Let’s call them institutions and we can have high walls and keep them off the streets away from the important people who matter in Irish society like those with big cars and fake tan.
I am 100% in favour of having enough places in the system such that the providers are competition to supply people with disabilities with the best possible care, rather than the disabled have to compete with each other to get a place.
I’m not engaged in mock shock I can tell you. As for your priorities I’ll give you the following reasons why they should be down the list compared to imposing charges on the disabled.
Class sizes. – I was a school class of more than 20 and so were most of the Celtic cubs and our parents and you know what – we worked out fine.
Transportation. – Get up a half hour earlier in the morning or move to smaller place closer to work.
Efficiency in Health Service delivery. – this should actually cost less money than the current set-up up so why is charging the disabled necessary to make this achievable?
Let me be clear. If everyone has an income, then I see no reason to not to charge everyone.
According to the OECD our educational system is grand for teaching people to read but poor at teaching them how to think by comparison to the kind of countries that we’d claim to be our peers. Your complacency on this score is frankly worrying.
Your airy dismissal of the transportation issue is meaningless in the context of our unsustainable dependance on private cars.
The point about efficiency in Health Service delivery is that the efficiency has to be delivered before the money is saved. Otherwise, you’re trying to spend money we don’t have as we haven’t saved it yet.
And I’m not suggesting that we can only do 3 things. I’m pointing out three things off the top of my head that are more important that the point you’ve raised. Put another way, we can hardly back every superficial tear-jerking cause that comes our way. We should be spending our time on the issues that really matter.
Will we go on duplicating all our posts, or just link the thread on http://www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?t=19533 where anyone with little else to do can watch us via the Interwebulator?
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As a person who has acquired her blindness I fully understand what it is like to be disabled and marginalsed by our disabling society. Therefore I am going in to the Senate Elections in the NUI constituency to fight for people’s rights and will be fighting for all people who are marginalised, not just some minorities. I would hope to be able to represent and assist your sister when elected.
As an aside I am surprised by your use of the phrase “mentally handicapped” this is a thing of the past, I am not being facetious or being overly politically correct, but I believe in order to ensure that your sister and others are treated fairly and equally we must get rid of these archaeic words which are a thing of the past. (Words such as handicap refer to cap in hand, or begging. Your sister is a person first and foremost and has a disability secondly. She is not handicapped, she has a disability)
Tina, with respect I use the phrase that we grew up using. There is no point in changing phraseology every few years if people’s mindsets remain the same. It may be archaic but so is saying ye and I do that all the time. And I tend to think of my sister as being a sister first and foremost. And I’m contesting the NUI panel myself. I was doing so before this specific issue came up for reasons that pale somewhat in importance.
Also the etymology of handicap has more to do with betting than begging. Link below.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=handicap&searchmode=none
As a person with a disability in Ireland I’m highly offended that a person claiming to have disability rights at the heart of his campaign is using the word handicap. It is archaeic, it is offensive and it’s quite obvious that you need to change these behaviours of your own before you can expect other people to change theirs.
Why would people go out of their way to change attitudes and behaviours towards disabled people in this country when the people who claim to be lobbying or working for them are using backward language and keeping these individuals stuck in a cycle of discrimination etc.
As someone with a disability I would request that you change your use of this word and give us some respect.
I sincerely hope that you are not elected to the Seanad this time around as I feel that your “Ah sure it’s what I’ve always done” attitude is negative and not what this country needs.
Annie, I have to ask if you read the original post at all. I used the term handicapped in refer to an organisation which had that has part of its name at the time. I didn’t actually use it myself in reference to people with disabilities in the post above. As I said that is the phrase we grew up using for the organisation. It now goes by the shorter name of “Kerry Parents & Friends Association” but you would have to admit that doesn’t tell you anything. It matters more to me the care and respect they have for the work they do than what their name once was.
I’m sorry that you feel that way about my Seanad bid. However, I have to wonder if you were reading my post with an open mind or just with the intention of finding something to be upset about.