What makes Lillian Poole, a Tallaght resident, most angry is when the health services make her difficult job even harder.
If she needs to have her 21-year-old son's electric wheelchair fixed or his oxygen tank refilled she has to make dozens of phone calls. She never asks for anything unless she really needs it, as to ask means having to pressurise health board staff and listen to lame explanations ("we're very busy" being the most common).
Lillian's son has Down's syndrome and a life-threatening heart condition. "I don't want sympathy, I want efficiency," says Lillian who, in her frustration, barges around like an angry, growling Marge Simpson. "I feel powerless in the face of Government waffle. We've no information. There's no service I can ring up and ask. I get my information via other parents who are going through the same thing I am."
Lillian, whose husband and second son both work, has no freedom or spontaneity in her life. She cannot go out for a break, to the cinema, or even pop out for a social drink. "But what bothers me most is that if I have a problem, it's not dealt with. You don't feel that people are rooting for you. Years ago, the special needs area was a vocation. Today it is no more than a job and when you telephone people all you hear is 'it's not my department'," she asserts.
In response to the question of whether she should be out working, she says, "I'm not part of the economy - I'm apart from the economy. I want to feel a part of life, but I cannot bring just any stranger in to look after my son."