There is growing alarm about health spending cuts amongst those working with people with intellectual disabilities, a meeting in Dublin was told yesterday.
Ms Deirdre Carroll, general secretary of Namhi, an umbrella organisation promoting the rights of those so disabled, was speaking at the publication of the organisation's pre-budget submission.
She said the increasing alarm among her colleagues was at the signals coming from the Department of Finance that there would be big cuts in the non-pay areas of health in the forthcoming Budget. The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, has indicated his wish to see cuts of up to €50 million in this area.
Ms Carroll said it was too easy to target the intellectually disabled with such cuts. "We will not be pushed to the back of the queue," she said.
"People with intellectual disabilities don't have special savings accounts, nor off-shore accounts either. They, their families, and the organisations that provide services to them have campaigned for years to get a fair share of the fruits of economic growth.
"We are not prepared to allow the political system to push us back to the end of the queue because the boom has slowed down."
According to the latest available figures, in the Annual Intellectual Disability Database report (2000), 1,711 people with such disability need a full-time residential service, 861 need day service and 1,014 need respite service. A further 462 have no service.
"It is almost certain that when the more up-to-date figures appear later this year they will show an increase in the waiting list in all categories," said Ms Carroll.
Among the items Namhi is calling for are the provision of at least 400 residential places this year and a further 200 respite care places and 400 day places; a non-means-tested carer allowance for people requiring full-time care; an increase in the respite care grant to at least €750 per annum, and the immediate establishment of an independent Social Services inspectorate.
Ms Carroll mentioned next year's Special Olympics, to be staged here.
"We wish the games well," she said, "but it would be a scandal if they were to take place against a background of continuing or even growing neglect of fundamental needs.
"It is a question of values and our priorities as a society. The intellectually disabled certainly didn't benefit as many of the population did during the boom years, and they certainly shouldn't bear the brunt when times are harder."
