Ms Joan O'Donnell:

From a family carer or disability perspective, primary care services are quite weak. There are over 3,000 children waiting for their first appointment for speech and language therapy.

I echo Ms Deane's point that centres are not services. We need a highly robust primary care service that is able to provide services. The recent budgetary increases, for example, to fund the extension of the carer's allowance for 12 weeks beyond bereavement and restore the respite care grant, are meaningless without services. Families who cannot afford to work or are unable to engage in low intensity or precarious work because to do so would risk the loss of medical cards and access to services is coming under more and more pressure.

On activation and employment, a comprehensive employment strategy for people with disabilities was launched recently after a wait of more than ten years. The documents refer to those who were left behind in jobless households in the good times. While we welcome the new employment strategy for people with disabilities, it is very much divorced from mainstream activation programmes. For example, it is being overseen by the Department of Justice and Equality rather than the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. Some of our most disadvantaged citizens, including people with disabilities, those who care for other family members, lone parents and Travellers, are subject to a system of apartheid. This is the broad group of people we seek to represent as part of this alliance.