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A PROTEST IS taking place outside of the Dáil in aid of people with disabilities.
It will last for 72 hours, starting this morning, and it is hoped it will draw attention to the inequality and abuses experienced by people with disabilities.
The group organising the protest the AT Network has criticised spending cuts made by the government to services in recent years.
A similar protest was held in 2012.
Aims of the protest
The group is aiming for a €300 million investment in disability services in Budget 2016, which is due to be announced next month.
Since 2008, spending on disability services has been cut by 10%, or almost €160 million.
Speaking today, one of the organisers Martin Naughton, said, “We have been patient, we have waited for the delivery of many promises and proposals, crumbs from the Budget table, but today, Ireland’s 600,000 people with disabilities and their families are at breaking point.
We are calling on the Government to listen to the voices of people with disabilities and our families who want support services to be redirected so that we can live independently in our homes, in our local communities with dignity.
He also said that the treatment of people with disabilities, including incidents at residential centres around the country, “invokes a heady mix of emotions of anger and rage”.
Cuts to services
The group claims that 68% of people who use disbility services in Ireland are dissatisfied with them.
Last month it was found that 93% of inspections at disability homes around Ireland failed to comply with national standards.
This accounted from the time that Hiqa began inspections up until November 2013.
The HSE funds disability services for around 9,400 individuals at a cost of around €900 million.
Originally published 2.40pm
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Spending cuts to disability services while increasing their own pensions sums up this government perfectly. It’s on a sociopathic level. Good luck to the protesters.
and while planning to take in thousands upon thousands of totally dependent foreigners.
How shameful, playing off one disadvantaged minority against another, Kenny and Burton would actually be delighted with your comment as they want to play a game of divide and rule, meanwhile their tax dodging supporters, the real scroungers like Denis O’Brien are laughing all the way to the bank. If DOB and others actually paid taxes in this country we could easily fund disability services and house refugees.
my guess is that when people are actually out protesting about issues like this, your still banging away on your keyboard.
Dj nobody should vote for Fine Gael or labour because they have been abusing disabled people sine their first budget in 2011 when they cut their disability by €9 . Kenny and co stepped over them when they protested outside the dail.
No votes for this government I hope they get a taste of being stuck in a freezing snow storm with no comfort unable to move forward. Then they might understand why the disabled are protesting outside the dail.
A societies morality is judged by how well it treats it’s most disadvantaged citizens. The 160 million they cut could and should have been found somewhere… Hang your heads Enda and co.
enda Kenny is such a lick arse, I don’t see him going out to talk to water charges protesters. guess they don’t make a good photo opp
Of course, if this was 6 or 12 months ago, he wouldn’t be doing this.
Ah Richard get a life, you would complain if Enda jumped out of bed on the left had side instead of the right.
John Reese , try grtting him to lump over a cliff
He couldn`t lie straight in bed
Well John, you’ll always know which way Kenny will jump, just ask Angela.
Thats the Mayo men sticking up for the supreme leader
Enda buying votes again
.
I couldn’t get there today. Too ill and no one to help as I’m a wheelchair user. I will try tomorrow, but all I can say…after cutting just about everything they could cut for sick and disabled people , leaving us with no services to speak of the hypocrisy of coming out to speak to disabled people is not lost on me! Yesterday I paid over 40€ to get to a hospital appointment because this gov cut the transport to hospitals budget, I’ve got a crap wheelchair, the special shoes made for me rip off my toenails , I get no physiotherapy, still waiting for help walking, and I’m waiting a year to see pain clinic. Told a heart test had no appointments till NEXT FEBRUARY ( could be dead by then!) and on and on it goes. If you complain to HSE you are branded a ‘serial complainer’ , (myself and twin were) but we were exonerated after a complaint investigation…where HSE were told to ‘own responsibility’ ! Have they ? No . The HSE persecution continues as we demand a better service. And this guy turns up! We’ve asked him to meet us, we’ve asked Varadkar to meet us…refused!
I’m just leaving the Mather now to go to the protest. All I want to do right now is crawl into bed after dealing with hospital bs but I don’t feel like I can go home because there are so many people who want to be there but can’t.
Hope you make it along at some stage.
My heart goes out to you. I mean that!!!
Here are the real victims of society, right on our doorstep. How many social media campaigns does this get? None. Nobody cares, apparently. Makes me sick
Exactly. The bleeding hearts better get used to situations like this as the added pressure of dependent immigrants forces more cutbacks to vital services and tax hikes to pay for the dependent illegals.
Give the ‘illegals’ a rest, will you? Both are disadvantagd groups. Your anger should be directed at the people forcing us to live in these conditions
A crap in every hole in every golf club nationwide might send the message home.
Yocky…
Wow…. Didn’t see that one coming.
Have you done that type of protest before Anne ?
No I haven’t but I thought it could be quite funny.
That and a couple of dumps from a slurry tank at every BMW forecourt ….. that sort of thing. If vulnerable people are getting hit where it hurts- well even the people who make those decisions have vulnerabilities and perhaps it’s time they got a kick or two where it hurts too!
Kick em in the nuts.
Hey Louis. A kick in the nuts would do but I was thinking more along the lines of dumping itching powder in the Ralph Lauren shirt factory …….. that kind of thing. Inducing a state of constant discomfort and paranoia while the rest of us have a right good laugh at their expense. ;-)
So basically attack anyone who is more fortunate than you?
LOL Romeo No.
But then again, actually yes, if I were a revolutionary, then yes, I would happily attack anyone thick enough to believe that owning a BMW makes them more fortunate than me. That’s exactly where society has lost the plot and gone awry.
I like where you’re coming from Anne (and green thumb just for the golf course laugh!), but I think we need to draw the distinction between those who become wealthy thru’ their own enterprise, and those who do so by corrupting the democratic process of public representation of ordinary (majority) citizens’ interests. Would you not agree?
That is, we can allow Capitalist enterprise, but as they are always a tiny minority, they have no business being anywhere near government decision making which should always act in the majority (labour class) interests.
Capitalism is a horrible disease that is destroying the planet, eroding civil liberties and reducing social diversity and culture. The idea that privilege is linked to personal wealth is absurd, medieval and gross- access to education and healthcare should never ever be dependant on the amount you can pay. Capitalism is hunger for money, a competition for money, specifically because of the privilege that money and ‘success’ affords – power- and power is never far away from the halls of Govt. So I don’t think the two are so easily separated.
I am a product of privilege and I know what a shallow world wealth creates.
What you describe Anne is Capitalism that is fully in control of democracy. As a first step toward a sustainable and just future, I’m suggesting that we get democracy to actually function. The internet and social media are already demonstrating that an informed populace, for the first time in history, could bring that about.
I’ve read about all manner of utopias that in theory, with sufficient mass co-operation, could work. But we need a process of getting there.
That Capitalism running everything is a looming disaster for the masses is hardly a revelation (to increasing numbers), but the likelyhood a single revolutionary leap away from it is zero. As is any mass agreement on what the end point should even look like.
What do you propose as a way forward?
It’s not just wheelchair users who are protesting, it is a “disability” protest! The rest of us exist too, those of us with sensory impairments, intellectual disabilities, mental health difficulties and those with a physical impairment who doesn’t require a wheelchair. We’re all pissed off and fed up being treated as second-class citizens.
And yeas 600,000 is an accurate figure.
Newly disabled , it would shock you what fellow humans say and do to disabled people as an everyday occurrence .. Never mind the government ..
Sorry to hear that Dave, hopefully we will keep moving towards a more equal society for all people, including those with disability.
Nanja…disabled people perfectly capable of ‘standing up for ourselves’ …but we are consistently knocked down by political discrimination. I’d go as far as saying ‘knocked out’!
This group of people, myself included are constantly justifying themselves and their cause. In my case, that was the way even when the economy was booming. I’m 18 now and I’m already exhausted with the various systems involved. It’s a disgrace to think, by cutting these services – it might look good financially on the balance sheet on the day. But in the long run, lives become more restricted, resulting in more challenging case of giving back and contributing to society. Every life, and everyone has potential, Enda and the rest need to stop seeing us as numbers and statistics, but as real people who have hopes and plans. It’s unfortunate that that side to it gets overlooked.
I see on the news that the property tax and water charges will have to go up to be in line with the rest of Europe, that will happen little by little after this coming budget as well as childrens allowance to be cut further…
This government more interested in creating an economy rather than a society.
And actually, just an economy for the Capital owning few.
This is neoliberalism, now dominating US, EU and many other regions for over 30yrs, and fundamentally anti democratic.
If you haven’t seen the youtube of Paul McCulley’s lecture (30mins) at Kilkenomics 2012, on Capitalists vs Democracy, it is very informative in understanding the basic driving forces in our countries.
Which party in the forthcoming election will cut their saleries and pensions.
try getting a job in this country is farcical. Your disability is interviewed by so called experts in HR not your qualifications, experience or skills
I understand that employers both in the private and public sector are legally obliged to employ people with disabilities to the tune of 3% of their workforce. Whilst we encourage MNC’s into this country with our low corporate tax rate, I would be interested to know how many of these companies actually reach this low figure of employing disabled people and indeed how and if this is monitored. It would be respectful of these companies to give something back to Irish society as they benefit from the low corp[orate tax rate.
600,000 that figure can’t be right
600,000 people with disabilities is not accurate I ask and some FG trolls red thumb it
As of 2011 the figure was 595,335.
that’s a joke, a lot of bluffing going on there.
It’s great to see wheelchair users standing up for themselves
nanja ibukor
if you are a stand-up comedian, I suggest you sit down.
That amount does not reconcile… Cut by 10% almost €160 mil, means spending must by €1.4bil not €900mil.
Anyone concerned there’s a half billion unaccounted for?
This should be available in Ireland.
It is safe, secure and a dignified method of Passenger transfer to an aircraft seat.
It’s available in disabled friendly UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and some other sites.
Japan will use this shortly.
I live in Ireland and provide this equipment.
Nil units in Ireland though.
have your say