One family tells KITTY HOLLANDhow their son is bored and under-stimulated following the closure of his sheltered workshop
JOHN CORCORAN (22) had been working at a sheltered workshop in Castlebar, Co Mayo, until last year.
“He’s a great fellow,” says his father Darach Corcoran, “and really enjoyed going to work every day. For him he was able to say he was going to work. It gave him a great sense of self-worth.”
The workshop, run by the Rehab group, is no longer operating and John instead goes to a day centre where he is bored and under-stimulated, says his father.
John has Down syndrome and difficulty with his speech. He started in mainstream national school and remained there until about first class with the help of a classroom assistant. He moved to St Anthony’s special needs school where he remained until he was 18.
“He went on to a course then intended to see if he would work in the general community, but he couldn’t and he moved to the sheltered workshop where he did great,” his father adds.
“He’d start at 9.15 in the morning and finish about 4.30pm. I dropped him there and he’d walk home. Everyone knows him about the town.”
John Corcoran says the work involved putting a bottled shaving solution into packaging, for which John got €35 a week, as well as his disability allowance of about €180 a week. “Some people thought it was slave labour and it should be ended, so it was closed about a year ago. In the end, all that did was to take away his sense of self worth.”
Perhaps the disability allowance could have been channelled to his son via the workshop’s accounts, he says, in such a way that would have represented a more fair “wage”.
Asked what John does every day now, he says he has done some work experience in a local hospital store.
“He enjoyed that but really John can’t work independently out in the community. The workshop was perfect for him. Effectively now he goes in and he goes on trips to Athlone or Dublin, but it’s not the work he enjoyed doing. I think realistically it’s difficult for the staff to occupy them.”
He is also concerned that from September, John’s five-day week is to be reduced to two days. “My wife and I are getting elderly. I am due to retire. It’s very difficult. John doesn’t know any of this yet. We are very worried because he’s going to be sitting around the house watching TV. It’s depressing.”
A spokeswoman for Rehab said the workshop had not been closed but “replaced with something better.”
She said personal care plans were worked out with individual clients and many went on to work in the community in supported employment.
She confirmed that as things stood, Rehab would only be able to fund two-day programmes for some in Castlebar from September. “Emergency funding is available from the HSE to continue providing five days a week and we have applied for that.”