The father of a child receiving care from the Central Remedial Clinic has described his anger at revelations that money from a company which fundraises on behalf of the clinic went towards executives' pay.
Joe Watson from Swords, whose nine-year-old son has attended the clinic since he was six months old, said he was "shocked, disgusted and enraged" by the revelations.
He made his comments after it emerged that a charitable company, Friends and Supporters of the Remedial Clinic, which generates funds from a lottery, were used to top up the salaries of senior staff at a time when the organisation was cutting services for adults and children with disabilities.
Fundraising
Mr Watson, who spoke to The Irish Times yesterday having appeared on Today with Seán O'Rourke on RTÉ Radio One earlier in the day, said he had been involved in numerous fundraising activities on behalf of the CRC.
These included cake sales, bag-packing, bucket collections and a poker night, “small things but they all added up”.
“And it was people giving up their free time to help me out in order to help the CRC out in order to help my son out . . . had I have known I certainly wouldn’t have done it”.
Mr Watson emphasised that he “could not fault” the treatment his son had received at the clinic.
“Without the CRC my son wouldn’t be the person he is today . . . [the staff], they’re the front line – they do their job and they go the extra mile without a shadow of doubt,” he said, adding that it was “upper management” who had benefited.
“These are recessionary times that people are living in day to day – for them to hear about these astronomical sums of money which are coming from fundraising, it doesn’t sit well with anyone.”