Sir, - I do not wish to detract from Fintan O'Toole's vivid account of the disgraceful treatment meted to Sean O'Neill by our "affluent society" (Opinion, August 19th).
However, as the father of a 35-year-old son who is severely mentally handicapped with autistic tendencies and resident in St Joseph's Learning Disability Service in St Ita's, Portrane, I feel the article merits some clarification.
The fact that two separate services, the original Psychiatric Service as well as St Joseph's Learning Disability Service, exist on St Ita's campus appears to have been overlooked in this article as well as in nearly all recent media references to St Ita's.
One would assume from the article that the offer to Sean O'Neill was for accommodation in the psychiatric service. Since, as has been made clear, his problem is not of a psychiatric nature, this would be most reprehensible.
If, as I think likely, the offer was for a place in St Joseph's Service, I would like all relatives of those accommodated in this service to know, that in the nine years my son has been accommodated there, he has had a quality of life not previously enjoyed by him in other services.
With other members of our association I have for those nine years, apart from fund-raising projects been involved in highlighting defects such as inadequacy of therapies, insufficient staff allocations, lack of day-to-day maintenance and in particular the slow pace of provision of alternative or properly upgraded accommodation in St Joseph's Service.
In my experience, however, the level of care provided by the staff of the service, often in difficult circumstances, has been such as to compensate in many ways for these defects. - Yours etc.,
Gerry McDonald, Vernon Gardens, Clontarf.