Welfare cuts leaving the disabled ‘prisoners’

Welfare cuts leaving the disabled ‘prisoners’
By Evelyn Ring
Friday, September 16, 2011
DISABLED people have become prisoners in their own homes because of cuts in welfare payments and support services, the Centre for Independent Living has warned.
It is one of 10 national disability groups urging the Government to recognise, in the December budget, the social and care needs of people with a disability.

Representing 800,000 people with disabilities, the organisation is fearful Ireland’s National Disability Strategy is about to collapse into empty promises.

It issued a joint statement yesterday calling on the Government to halt reductions in income supports and maintain funding for services.

Tom King, the director of the Centre for Independent Living, said homes had being turned into institutions because of cuts in personal assistance hours.

"They have turned personal assistant care into home care but they will not give you social care. You have no choice, no control," he said.

Des Kenny, the chairman of the Not for Profit Business Association, said the personal assistant scheme had given individuals the chance to move from bed to society.

"To take that away is a new form of imprisonment of people with a disability and, to me, that is the biggest scandal," he said.

"Once it just gets people out of their bed, dresses them and once they are not smelly the state doesn’t care. They can sit in their own homes all day."

Mr Kenny said a "recession plan" was needed so that disability services did not continue to be funded on an ad-hoc basis.

Inclusion Ireland chief executive Deirdre Carroll said they had been warned to expect a further cut of 5.5% in the disability budget under the HSE on top of a 1.8% cut last year.

She said the cut would have to come from front-line services because staff pay could not be touched because of the Croke Park Deal.

"There’s no Croke Park deal for people with disabilities," she said.

John Dolan, the chairman of the Disability Federation of Ireland, said he was concerned Ireland’s social infrastructure would be decimated when the country came out of the recession.

"It is our economic sovereignty that has gone west at the moment.

"We still have our social sovereignty and our social responsibility.

"Disability is not a sectorial issue; it is a social issue. 18.5% of the Irish population have one or more disabilities and the percentage is increasing as our population ages.

"There is no coherent plan as to how we are going to protect people with significant disabilities and conditions from the cradle to the grave


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