Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

When the history of this period of Government is written, I am not certain the headline will be the downturn in the economy but how the Government set out to attack the most vulnerable in society. It started with the over 70s and then moved on to people on disability allowance, with the stipulation that they could not receive it until they were 18. Both of these measures were reversed but the Government then moved on to children with an intellectual disability, a measure which has yet to be reversed, although I am confident it will be reversed because of the outrage that exists.

The latest in the series of vulnerable groups which are to be attacked by the Government is a group of people who do the State an enormous service. This service is done by caring for their relatives, whether they are children, husbands, fathers, mothers or sisters — they are family members who, without such care and attention, would be in institutions and not getting the same kind of attention they get at home. This most definitely saves the State an enormous amount of money. These people have put up a fight year after year for an increase in the amount they are paid for this work, but that was only part of the battle. The rest of the battle was about facilities, training, recognition and ensuring that they would occasionally get some time off. It was about ensuring they would get the support and assistance of community nurses, GPs, physiotherapists and all the therapies that should assist people who have a difficulty in living their day-to-day life. Now, the Government has decided the strategy that was to put all of that in place, a strategy into which all of these people bought, both the organisations and the individuals, is to be binned.

There are many groups of people this Government could have attacked. It could have set about taxing people who had squirrelled away great wealth, but it did not. It decided to start with the most vulnerable, people whom it felt could not fight back. It is disgraceful. The Minister should put this strategy in place immediately.

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