Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

On Friday week, 6 May, parents and children will take to the streets of Cork, Dublin and Enniscorthy to demand services for children with disabilities. A public meeting in Cork on this issue was recently told by a primary school principal that 60 therapists have been cut from Cork schools since the introduction of the State's seemingly misnamed progressing disability services scheme. The meeting also was told many heartbreaking tales of children who had to wait and wait for assessments of needs, those whose parents were forced to pay, and pay big, to go private and those who have been left behind because their parents simply cannot afford to pay. In recent days, the Minister for Health has intervened in a row between the Minister of State with responsibility for disability services, Deputy Rabbitte, and the HSE on the issue of her right to meet directly with district managers of these services. The parents and children who will march on Friday week will care far more about service delivery and results than about who is meeting whom at senior level. What hope can the Taoiseach offer these parents today as they polish up their marching boots and prepare to take to the streets in just nine days' time, which is something they should never even have to consider given the pressures on them?

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