Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday it was elderly people in nursing homes while today it is people with disabilities living in institutional care centres - another day, another scandal involving the conscious abuse of State power to defraud the most vulnerable people. Rather than caring for these people as the State is legally obliged to, a decision was repeatedly taken at the highest level to rip them off.

The Taoiseach said earlier that the State did not have a leg to stand on legally when it came to people with disabilities. The rip-off took place in two ways - first, through not paying them disability payments to which they were legally entitled and, second, by covering that up and adopting the same hush-hush, settle out of court legal strategy used with nursing home charges.

The Taoiseach was forced yesterday to admit he was personally implicated in the nursing homes scandal along with pretty much the entire political establishment over the past 50 years one day after saying he had nothing to do with it. The case of disability payments encompasses the period when the Taoiseach was Minister for Health. Is he personally implicated in this plan to defraud tens of thousands of people with disabilities? Will he take the opportunity to apologise to these people and their families as a first step to ensuring they receive every penny to which they are entitled? If he accepts that the State did not have a legal leg to stand on, why was this strategy pursued?

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