Joe Humphreys spoke to a mother suffering from the care workers' strike as she is forced to keep her son, who has intellectual disabilities, at home
The bus never came to collect Mr Paul Fox from his parents' home in Artane, north Dublin yesterday morning.
The 35-year-old usually spends Monday to Friday in a residential care unit in Santry for people with intellectual disabilities. From there, he travels daily to a day care centre at Belcamp, where yesterday - if it wasn't for the strike - he would have been doing what his mother, Elizabeth, describes as "his exercises", aimed at controlling his epilepsy.
Yesterday morning, however, Paul was stranded. Both centres - each of which are run by St Michael's House - were closed except for emergencies. And, as a result, it was left to Paul's parents to tend to his needs.
"The break of routine is the worst thing," says Elizabeth (60). "It's all right for us having him here for an extra day or two. But after a while he would be thinking 'what did I do wrong?' He'd get worried it was his fault that he wasn't in Belcamp and he'd want to get a taxi up there.
"At the moment, we're telling him there are meetings going on and he can't go up. But the longer it goes on the more difficult it will get."
One of her four other children, Margaret, is worried about the effect the dispute might have on her parents as well.
Elizabeth suffered a heart-attack last summer and since then she has been in rehabilitation in Beaumont hospital. Having Paul at home for a long period of time "would put an extra strain on her," says Margaret. "She worries too much about me," replies Elizabeth in an effort to play down how she has been inconvenienced by the strike.
She notes, however, she won't be able to attend a rehab session scheduled for this Thursday if Paul is still with her then.
Her buden is made heavier by the fact that her other children, who help out at weekends, are all working during the week.
Elizabeth, who with the rest of her family reared Paul for the first 15 years of his life without outside help, is understandably full of praise for the staff at St Michael's and is sympathetic to their pay claim. "I understand where they are coming from. They should be able to get what they are looking for, and they're not going to get it unless they take a stand. I just hope it doesn't go on for too long."
She adds: "I have a lot to thank St Michael's for. He has come so far in recent times, it's hard to believe. We usen't to be able to take him on a bus or a car journey. He'd get too upset. But now he goes into town every week with one of the carers and he buys a few bits and pieces for himself. We could never have done it on our own."
Paul is one of 250 St Michael's clients in residential care, 80 of who were sent home yesterday, with the agreement of parents, as a result of the strike. Outside the Ballymun Road headquarters of St Michael's, meanwhile, there were IMPACT pickets throughout the day.
The mood was defiant with picketters maintaining they would stay on strike "for as long as it takes".
Mr Gerard Lynch, an assistant house officer, captured the mood when he said "we feel it's very clear-cut. We are entitled to a pay rise and they are refusing to give us one.
"This is a last resort," he said. "The HSEA knew about this since last April and they've done nothing.
"The decision was not taken lightly but we feel we are being discriminated against."
He added: "We have done everything to ensure emergency cover is implemented to ensure the safety of all service users. We don't want to inflict any hardship on anyone and I would say the level of emergency cover we are giving is very generous."