Paul Murphy: 'Profoundly uncivilised' on disability care
Paul Murphy addressed a Dáil motion supporting the Before We Die campaign and urged immediate action to protect adults with intellectual disabilities living with elderly parents. He sets out urgent numbers, government responsibility, and demands implementation of the motion's actions.
Urgency of the motion
Paul Murphy thanks the Social Democrats for bringing the motion forward and the Before We Die campaign for raising the issue. He warns that over 2,000 adults with intellectual disabilities are living with parents aged 70 or older, including 500 whose parents are over 80, creating an urgent need for state planning.
Failure of successive governments
Murphy criticises successive Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael governments for targeting people with intellectual disabilities first in cuts and last in restoration. He argues that such treatment marks the state as profoundly uncivilised and says the rhetoric of "hard choices" always hits the vulnerable first.
Extent of the shortfall
The speech highlights that residential places have not been restored to pre-2008 levels and that an additional 3,900 residential places would be required to do so. Murphy challenges the government to use current budgetary surpluses to provide the care those families need.
Demands and consequences
Murphy warns that the absence of state care drove many carers to reject the recent care referendum and insists the government must stop talking and start acting. He calls for a clear plan to implement all actions outlined in the motion to prevent chaotic outcomes for adults with intellectual disabilities when their parents die.
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Thanks very much and thanks a lot to the Social Democrats for bringing forward this good motion and to the Before We Die campaign for putting this on the political agenda because for too long adults with intellectual disabilities and their parents have faced the future with dread, not knowing what will happen to them after their parents pass away. The awful fear is that after they die the adult child will go from a life where the best care has been lovingly provided by their parents to an uncertain, unplanned and even chaotic future. Over 2,000 adults with an intellectual disability are living with parents aged 70 or older, including 500 whose parents are over 80. So this motion is urgent. It cannot just be allowed to pass because being seen to oppose it would be too embarrassing for the government and then left on the shelf alongside everything else that the government knows it should do but won't because its priorities lie elsewhere. If the mark of a civilised society is how it treats its most vulnerable members, then the lack of care shown towards adults with intellectual disabilities marks out this state as a profoundly uncivilised one. Successive Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael governments, in power since the foundation of the state, have failed abysmally to care for people with intellectual disabilities. They have been the first group targeted for cuts, the last to have funding restored. This is what the government means when it talks about hard choices. It's never about targeting the rich or the powerful, always about kicking the vulnerable and the poor. The motion points out that the number of residential places has still not been restored to pre-2008 levels and that an additional 3,900 residential places would be needed just to achieve that. If the government can't care for disabled people now, when it has billions of euros in surplus, when is it ever going to do it? The answer is never, unless they are forced to by campaigns like this one. The absence of state care was what prompted so many carers and disabled people to angrily reject the so-called care referendum, with its mealy-mouthed wording about striving to support family care. Carers have had enough of RG Great. The government needs to stop talking and start acting and develop a plan to implement all of the actions outlined in this motion.
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