Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to raise another issue with the Minister of State. I am concerned about the proposed ¤65 million cut to disability and home help services.

Senator Conway has left but he is au fait with the massive inefficiencies of the service. I will follow the matter myself and track it. I want to ensure that every person who needs help receives it and we all have a moral responsibility to ensure that happens. We should not disregard the newspaper headlines that people in receipt of disability or home care packages will lose them. The media has dragged politics into disrepute and the situation is getting worse by the week. The media tries to entertain the public who are already cynical about the Seanad and the Dáil but politicians are being labelled as lazy.

I feel honoured and privileged to be a public servant. As John F. Kennedy said: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." I had the privilege of being very close to President Kennedy when he came to Dublin and visited Dublin Castle in 1963 - and I will tell Members about that on another occasion. On this day 50 years ago he responded to the Thalidomide birth defects crisis by signing an amendment to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act that required pharmaceutical companies to prove that their products were safe and effective prior to marketing. He understood how important it was for his nation to know that this poisonous drug was not approved for sale in the USA. We were not so fortunate here with just 32 survivors alive after 50 years.

The Fine Gael Party gave a commitment in its programme for Government that it would deal with the issue and properly look after the needs of the 32 Thalidomide survivors. No one ever believed that the survivors would reach 60 years of age because it was believed that they would die when they were about 20 or 25 years old. It is a scar on the reputation of the Irish State that the group has been so badly treated. They have not even received an apology from the State. President Kennedy had the guts and knew that it was not correct to allow the drug to be sold. Not only was the drug allowed into this country, it was still on shelves in pharmacies around the country a year later when people knew it was poisonous. I would like to see the issue resolved. The Thalidomide group has decided to take the matter to the courts. The Minister for Health said that he would do his best to resolve the issue when he came to power. The former Minister for Health, Mary Harney, and the Fianna Fáil Party failed to deal with the issue and adopted a flippant attitude towards it. I was the group's champion in the previous Government and I arranged for many of the survivors to meet the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party but I was shocked at its heartlessness because it could not even make an apology on behalf of the State. I wish the new Minister of State the best of luck in his new role.