Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

-----in their ability to manage their own personal situations.

As far as I and Fine Gael are concerned, the 2004 disability strategy is in tatters. Two vital pieces of legislation, the Disability Act and the Education for People with Special Educational Needs Act have been shelved or have been cut so far back as to render them ineffective. There is an enormous human cost to these cutbacks. Today we will see the faces of those people, who are primarily affected by these cutbacks, at the gates of Leinster House. On the day after we heard of the new approach to NAMA, the new information about it and the disparity in the figures of the profit it was meant to make going from €4 billion to €1 billion to maybe a loss, which seems to be the more likely situation; that we hear of the billions of euro that we have put and continue to put into banks, which are not accountable, with many of the same people still in place; and that we heard the CEO of NAMA say the banks have not told the full story and the facts they have given to NAMA are under question once again; it is appropriate that today we have a debate in this House on the cutbacks in the disability sector.