COMMENT: Excuses will not wash. It's time for Limerick's TDs to prove their worth
FOR the 63 County Limerick families reliant on the Brothers of Charity for a break from caring for disabled loved ones, a week's respite costs the same as a night in a city hotel.
To keep the respite centre open on the Old Cratloe Road, just one minister's car per year would have to be left in the garage.
To do the right thing by the Limerick families, the HSE would have to reallocate just one hundred thousandth (.00001] of one per cent of its budget of €14 billion for 2010.
When the health budget is announced at the start of the year, it's clear who is holding the purse-strings. Money is allocated to the HSE by Minister Harney. After that it is left up to the HSE managers how it is spent.
For too long, service providers for the disabled have had only a detached, if not downright mendicant, relationship with the Government and the health managers. Like the Limerick families who save the state a fortune to care for their loved ones, the Brothers of Charity raise their own money to provide services and are generously supported by the people of Limerick. But they remain dependent on allocations from Government to maintain those levels of service.
We all appreciate the Government has to trim spending but the j1 million reduction in spending to the Brothers of Charity in Bawnmore is a cut too far.
It left the organisation, already told it can't take on any more staff, facing impossible choices. Should it turf long-stay residents out on the street? Should the day centre shut its doors? And so for two weeks now, families have had no respite services and are sick with worry over what will come next.
Last weekend 6,000 people added their signatures to a Limerick Leader petition to reopen the respite centre. Hundreds more have joined this paper's online campaign for the immediate restoration of the service, by visiting the special page which can be viewed our website.
"Society has failed when the innocent are deserted," comments reader Kieran McKernan.
"It seems the Government has sacrificed the well-being of the most vulnerable members of our society to pay the wages of avarice generated by the very few," says Julia Ann Croft.
This is a sentiment widely held by our readers at a time when billions can so readily be found for bank bailouts and a mere €150,000 to keep the respite centre open leaves our politicians seemingly powerless.
"I'll look into it," the Taoiseach said when he met the Limerick families this week. He said he would speak to Minister for Mental Health John Moloney, who many view as another buffer for Minister Harney. The IMF and the credit rating agencies are applauding the Government's imagination on the banking crisis and in driving through multi-billion austerity measures, we are told.
Let them apply their much-vaunted imaginations to finding the relative pittance needed to give a break to the families who are already saving them a fortune. What are our local politicians for if they can't come up with a way of reopening the centre?
Excuses will not wash and we will not rest until the respite centre is reopened - and without further delay.
TO SUPPORT OUR ONLINE PETITION AND SHOW YOUR SUKPPORT FOR THE AFFECTED FAMILIES, CLICK HERE
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