SEVERAL hundred people with disabilities and their supporters from all over the State yesterday protested outside the Dail. The protest was organised by the Disability Federation of Ireland, which is angry at the Government's failure to provide extra funding to improve services. The improvements were recommended in a report, Towards an Independent Future, published by the Department of Health in December.
The cost of implementing the improvements was estimated at £12 million in the first year, and the federation is angry that none of this money was provided in the Budget.
Yesterday's protest began at Parnell Square and many of the participants carried placards demanding rights, not charity. Disability activist Mr Martin Naughton told The Irish Times that the demands being made yesterday reflected a key change which had taken place in the disability area.
This was that people with disabilities had come to see their situation as one of civil rights and equality. And increasingly, he said, people working in the disability area saw themselves as working in the equality area.
There was anger in the movement because the signals it was getting from the Government in December were that the £12 million would be provided this year, instead, he said, nothing was provided.
"We feel we left our money in the hands of people who didn't take very good care of it."