Minister for Health Mary Harney has paid tribute to the work of the Cope Foundation in Cork, which works with more than 1,600 people with intellectual disabilities. She was officially opening a new €10 million facility for the group at its headquarters in Montenotte.
The Tánaiste said that the Ard Dara complex, comprising six single-storey houses and a day developmental centre, was a major advance for the foundation, which celebrates its 50th anniversary next year.
She also confirmed that she would be giving approval in the coming weeks for capital funding of €6.7 million for the foundation to develop an eight-bed unit for people with difficult behavioural traits.
Ms Harney said it was a particularly proud day for Cope's chief executive, Maura Nash, and for Brian Bermingham, whose father, John, had set up the Cork Polio and General Aftercare Association in 1957. "I am sure he [ John Bermingham] could not have envisaged . . . that 49 years later they would be providing services for 1,600 people and would have a staff of 700 across 60 locations here in Cork. "
She continued: "You certainly have made the lives of your service-users and their families so much better. I cannot imagine what the qualify of life would be like for them without your services and your facilities."
Ms Harney said that Ard Dara was an important development for Cope and for the community because it was clear from research that moving people from an institutional setting to a more home-based environment greatly improved their lives.
"People who can live in a home environment, be they older people or people with intellectual disability, do an awful lot better and have a much higher quality of life, more self-esteem [ and] greater dignity than those in an institutional setting."
