As some of you might have been aware, I was somewhat enraged to discover that the state is planning to charge disabled adults for living in residential care settings.

So after a weekend in which I suspect I may have calmed down somewhat, I've gotten off my rear and am trying to do something about it.

You can show your support by signing the petition to "Support independent living for disabled adults" and also by raising the issue on the doorstep with all canvassers and candidates.

I am looking at put together a leaflet or a pledge that voters can print off and keep beside their doors and instead of members of the public just receiving literature from candidates perhaps we can give some back and inform them a little bit. Really make politics a real two way street. And I want and would ask that people to do this for candidates of all parties and none. I think everyone contesting the election should be aware of the wrongness of these charges.

Click below to access the petition

”Support independent living for disabled adults"

And there is a button available for your site courtesy of GreenInk, more details here

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Thanks for the votes - Dan Sullivan. I'll be back and then we can all have a vote.


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Read your orginal post and Fergus Finlay's article in the Irish Examiner.

I can't believe that anyone could suggest, not to mind, carry out such draconian tactics.



Sign the petition

Thanks for highlighting this and maybe we can get our politicans to anwser to this one on the doorsteps over the coming weeks!

Braz, thanks for signing up. Folks I'm not asking for people to support me, I'm asking for people to support the issue and raise it with all candidates that come to call. I'm leaving no one out of that.

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Thanks for the votes - Dan Sullivan. I'll be back and then we can all have a vote.


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I signed it. Thats shocking. Im really, genuinely shocked at that.
If it is as you say it is KK, well.. I dont know.

You can read Fergus Finlay's article which I linked to on my blog post for more information.

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Thanks for the votes - Dan Sullivan. I'll be back and then we can all have a vote.


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I haven’t signed it. We need to decide what is and priority and what isn’t. This just isn’t.

Class sizes. Transportation. Efficiency in Health Service delivery. Those are at least three issues that I can think of that come ahead of this one. Also, in your blog you mention how residential care doesn't exactly grow on trees. I'd suggest we'd want to be in the situation where access to residential care was actually open to anyone who needs it before we felt it necessary to make it totally free to a recipient who has an income.

In the mean time, why shouldn’t people in residential care contribute towards their own maintenance? Particularly if the allowance is a state benefit, which makes the whole transaction a bit circular? This is the typical kind of tear-jerking irrelevance that nets us a political system incapable of engaging with the realities of Irish life. Its all mock shock and no substance, like the various ‘keep our dirty old hospitals open for jobs, and we'll go to a real hospital when we're really sick and wonder why there's a queue’ campaigns.

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schuhart, can you explain to me who exactly it is that is not in receipt of an income, since you evidently view all forms of social welfare payment as a form of income, that should be a priority for free access to residential care?

As for your circular argument perhaps we should have people with large scale housing where we can provide them with heat and food in a cost effective manner. Let’s call them institutions and we can have high walls and keep them off the streets away from the important people who matter in Irish society like those with big cars and fake tan.

I am 100% in favour of having enough places in the system such that the providers are competition to supply people with disabilities with the best possible care, rather than the disabled have to compete with each other to get a place.

I’m not engaged in mock shock I can tell you. As for your priorities I’ll give you the following reasons why they should be down the list compared to imposing charges on the disabled.

Class sizes. - I was a school class of more than 20 and so were most of the Celtic cubs and our parents and you know what - we worked out fine.

Transportation. - Get up a half hour earlier in the morning or move to smaller place closer to work.

Efficiency in Health Service delivery. - this should actually cost less money than the current set-up up so why is charging the disabled necessary to make this achievable?

And one final thing since when does deciding on priorities mean that you can do only 3 things while in government - is that how the department of finance or health operates?

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Thanks for the votes - Dan Sullivan. I'll be back and then we can all have a vote.


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Let me be clear. If everyone has an income, then I see no reason to not to charge everyone.Not according to the OECD who found that our educational system is grand for teaching people to read but poor at teaching them how to think by comparison to the kind of countries that we'd claim to be our peers. Your complacency on this score is frankly worrying.Simply not a practical proposition, and meaningless in the context of our unsustainable dependance on private cars.The point is that the efficiency has to be delivered before the money is saved. Otherwise, you're trying to spend money we don't have as we haven't saved it yet.I'm not suggesting that we can only do 3 things. I'm pointing out three things off the top of my head that are more important that the point you've raised. Put another way, we can hardly back every superficial tear-jerking cause that comes our way. We should be spending our time on the issues that really matter.

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Efficiency saves money as it goes along, that is the in the nature of making things more efficient and why don't you clearly say what and how you are going to make things more efficient?

So it isn't a priority in your view, but why don't you support it even as an non-priority issue? I'm at a lost as you how you can suggest this is "superficial tear-jerking". Superficial it most certainly is not, it is your calls for "efficiency" and "class sizes" and "Transportation" that are superficial.

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Thanks for the votes - Dan Sullivan. I'll be back and then we can all have a vote.


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How does this make the issue you are raising more or less of an irrelevance? Do I take it you've just run into a wall now that you've been asked to justify why anyone should rate this as important enough to raise on the doorstep.Because the whole problem with public debate in this country. Everyone is willing to give lip service to any old thing that passes their way. So today its all about disability. Tomorrow its pensions. The day after that its Stamp Duty. I'm suggesting we should use some discretion and sort out what really matters.I'm mentioning them as headline points but unless you've really got your head stuck in the sand you cannot seriously maintain that the issues at stake in those three areas are superficial.

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