Care charges on people with disabilities are 'assault on rights'

Charges which have been levied on people with intellectual disabilities are an "assault on their right to live as independently as possible", the organisation representing them has said.

Inclusion Ireland, the national association for people with an intellectual disability, said that up to 6,000 people are being affected by plans to bring in charges of between €90 and €120 a week for residential care.

Some are being charged €3,000 for retrospective payments stretching back almost two years, the organisation's annual conference in Cork was told at the weekend.

The charges were introduced in July 2005 as part of plans to regularise nursing home payments across the health service. It followed a ruling by the Attorney General that it was illegal to charge medical card holders for a place in a public nursing home.

Inclusion Ireland CEO Deirdre Carroll said the charges amounted to half the €184 disability allowance that many receive from the State every week. The organisation believes a charge of around €60 would be more appropriate.

She said: "We are not against charges per se, but the level of charges involved penalise people who are already penalised enough in life.

"How can you ask people to participate fully in the community if you take away half their income? We want the Government to immediately revoke these unjust, mean, cheeseparing regulations."

Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly promised 300 delegates that her office didn't differentiate between complainants with an intellectual disability and those without.

Ms O'Reilly said such complainants often highlighted inadequacies in the system.

"An examination of individual complaints often leads to the identification of systemic defects in procedures, approach or even attitudes and at this level valuable feedback can be given to the bodies within remit.

"Procedures and complaints can then be improved in order to ensure that particular complaints do not recur."

Ms O'Reilly said it was in these areas that her office was able, to some degree, to level the playing field for disadvantaged groups in our society.

The Ombudsman went on to tell delegates that in the past providers of services to the intellectually disabled may have considered complaints as irritants interfering with their normal work and/or as criticisms of their decisions against which they had to defend themselves.

She maintained the delegates should be able to inform her office of the many hurdles that face people with intellectual disabilities when they wish to lodge a complaint.

Ms O'Reilly said she would like to see the development of the role of an independent advocacy service. The service would facilitate the individuals' movement through the complaints process in matters such as treatment, therapies, medication, social welfare benefits, family relations and domestic concerns.

Ms O'Reilly noted that a particular issue that was likely to be of importance to delegates was the issue of the refund of illegal health charges.