On Wednesday, 7th July, disabled people and their carers will be attending rallies at Leinster House and at various other venues around Ireland to protest at the government's plans to further slash their services and benefits. Please support the cause of society's most vulnerable people by passing this article on to as many people as possible.
'Okay Today ?'
Are you okay today ? If accident or illness disabled you tomorrow how would you cope and who would look after you? I’ll give you a clue...it won’t be the State.
Imagine your current lifestyle permanently reduced to minimum State benefits, no matter how great your needs.
Imagine the person who has to care for you working all day, every day with no breaks, time-off or holidays...maybe for minimum State benefits if they’re lucky, maybe nothing if they’re not.
Imagine that you have to fight endlessly for every single thing you are entitled to.
Imagine that even the things you are entitled to have been slashed to the point where you can barely cope.
And then imagine that the government deems you worthy of further sacrifice in the cause of the Irish economy.
Welcome to the world of the disabled and their carers.
.........................
Disability is not a lifestyle choice, ask my son who, at sixteen, unfortunately still won’t be able to answer you. And yet the help that people like my son so desperately need to make progress is to be slashed yet again as educational and therapeutic services are shot down as easy economic targets. It’s difficult to complain when you can’t speak which means the person caring for you has to add that to their already impossibly long list of things to do. Because, let’s face it, caring is not a career choice. How could it be when the continuous hours that most carers work and the conditions that they work under would be illegal if anyone were actually employing them? But of course no-one is.
Ireland’s 161,000 known carers work at least 3.7 million hours per week and save the Irish State an estimated €2.8 billion on its annual budget. That looks like a fairly substantial personal and financial sacrifice to me but carers didn’t need a recession to make this sacrifice...it’s been going on for years, making our continuous contribution to the economy proportionately greater than any other sector. Sadly, the only way we could effectively illustrate this is by going on strike.
This government proposes to cut already sparce respite and support services even further, piling an even greater burden onto the shoulders of the nation’s carers. We, as individual carers, do not have any ultimate legal responsibility for those we care for and if we all presented ourselves at our local HSE offices and said that we were no longer able to cope then nothing and no-one could force us to do so. The State, embodied in the HSE, does have that ultimate legal responsibility and we could cause a crisis of unmanageable proportions if we all turned up on the HSE’s doorstep on Wednesday, July 7th, Disability Protest Day.
We will not, of course, do this....precisely because we care for those we care for. This personal sacrifice is exactly what this government counts on as it holds carers hostage to the cynical exploitation of their labour at a level which must surely contravene their most basic human rights. Many carers are working the kind of hours that are normally equated with sweatshops and gangmasters and some have continuous care of their charges 24/7/365. In the light of this the consequent callousness of cuts to the benefits of both carers and those they care for is beyond belief.
In the words of Inclusion Ireland.......
‘ The Disability Strategy has been dismantled and people with disabilities have faced cuts to services they receive, education supports and social welfare.....enough is enough, people cannot take any further cuts.’
Enough is indeed enough. Both disability and caring entail pervasive costs that the able and employed never have to face.
Many disabled or elderly people can never be left alone. In the absence of statutory supports carers must pay for additional help out of their own pockets to access the most basic and necessary things that everyone else takes for granted. When a shopping trip or a doctor’s appointment require paid help to accomplish then health is neglected, a social life becomes an impossible dream and a holiday is a Sunday supplement fantasy.... if you can can afford the paper.
Being housebound requires constant heating, the cost of which is totally beyond any minimal assistance with fuel bills. And those who do not fall within means-tested limits get no help at all.
Incontinence laundry, an unfortunate but pervasive fact of disability life, requires washing machine and dryer usage far in excess of that of ‘normal’ homes and there has to be lots more of everything to compensate. More sheets, more duvets, more spare clothes, more cost.
Car usage is greater because it’s necessary to accomplish even the simplest and shortest of outings and it’s often the only window on the world for both the disabled person and their carer
These are but a few examples and I could go on, and on, and on.
This week some of the disabled and their carers will be rallying at Leinster House and at various other venues around the country to raise their voices in protest at the government’s cowardly and pernicious targeting of society’s most vulnerable people. My son’s high-dependency needs mean I won’t be able to attend so I am making my voice heard in the way I know best.
If you’re okay today then give your support to those who aren’t...you can never be sure it won’t be you next.......and if it’s true that what you give out comes back then neither can our beloved government.
Gaia Charis.
This article has been circulated to.........
Brian Cowen
Eamon O'Cuiv
Enda Kenny
Eamon Gilmore
President Mary McAleese
Lord David Puttnam
Kathy Sinnott
John Waters
Irish Times
Irish Independent
Irish Examiner
Southern Star
National Parents and Siblings Association
Carers Association
Inclusion Ireland
West Cork Carers
Irish Autism Alliance
National Institute for Intellectual Disability
RTE
Joe Duffy Liveline
C103 Radio
SENAP
ShineIreland
and numerous supporting individuals........please add to this list.