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Governments must care about people with disabilities.
Governments must make sure that people with disabilities In Ireland 3 organisations came together |
Inclusion Ireland, Irish Autism Action and Down Syndrome Ireland called on government to start making people with a disability a priority.
The three advocacy organisations came together to launch a new publication that highlights how cuts have hit people with a disability and their families from every Government Department.
It shows:
- Almost 35,000 children are waiting for speech and language therapy.
- Those on Disability Allowance have €847 a year less since 2008.
- Only 5% of adults with an intellectual disability are in employment.
- Resource teaching hours have reduced 15% since 2011.
These are some of the many cuts that are hitting people with an intellectual disability and/or autism, and their families, hard.
Speaking at the launch, Inclusion Ireland CEO Paddy Connolly called on the Government to disability-proof the upcoming Budget, and said people with disabilities feel “increasingly disenfranchised by this Government”. He said in addition to “direct cuts to income and other supports frontline staff in health services are not being replaced” and this is having a massive impact: “This document identifies four key government Departments whose decisions have an enduring effect on people with a disability and their families. Each operates independently of the other but the impact of their decisions is accumulative.”
Pat Clarke, Down Syndrome Ireland CEO, expressed: “We have had five years of successive cuts and austerity measures that have had a detrimental effect on the social inclusion of people with disabilities. This has to stop. Our government is not interested in getting people with an intellectual disability into the workforce as they are not on the live register, and therefore getting them into employment will not improve the statistics that this government sees as the benchmark of success. The lived life of a person with a disability, young or old should NOT become collateral damage in the current climate.”
“The Government announcement of €600 million less out of the economy in this budget can help a reinvestment in the futures of our children and young adults. We cannot let the legacy of recession be an abandonment of the most vulnerable in our society,” said Kevin Whelan from Irish Autism Action.
