'I thought the money was disgraceful'

Paul Alford (44) worked in the sheltered workshop at Peamount Hospital making cardboard box-dividers for 22 years. When he left two years ago he was being paid €13 a week.

"I'd go around the other workers, collect the cardboard pieces into piles of 10 or 20 and stack them and then shrink-wrap them into palettes to leave outside." He worked from 9am to 4pm, Monday to Friday.

From East Wall, Dublin, Paul moved to Peamount from a nursing home in Bray in 1983. When he started, he was paid 50p a week. "Then it went to £5 a week and then to £10. When the new money came in it was €13. I thought the money was disgraceful, but you know there were some getting €3 a week."

He says that he liked his co-workers, but the work was "very tiring" and he was on his feet most of the day.

The workshop had a contract with Smurfit. A spokesman for Smurfit Kappa Group said: "Clearly our intention in giving business to the scheme was to create employment for people in the system, but obviously we had no role in how the scheme was run."

Paul also worked two hours a day in the hospital's newsagent, which he described as "a break from the workshop". He says that he checked orders when they came in, stocked the shelves with cards, confectionery and drinks, and took money from customers. For this he got €10 for a 10-hour week. Overall, he came out with €23 a week.

He also got €30 from his disability allowance, the balance being retained by the hospital when he was living there.

Asked whether he felt short of money, he says he did: "I bought tobacco, because I smoke a pipe, and minerals, biscuits, clothes." Asked how much he would have liked, he says: "Another €20 a week would have done me."

He now works a 20-hour week for Inclusion Ireland as an office assistant, earning the minimum wage. "I love coming to work now," he says.

Catherine Slattery, director of rehabilitative services at Peamount, confirmed that the workshop closed last October. The 47 people working there were mostly over 50, she said, and the hospital planned to provide day activities suited to their retirement.

The "workers" were given an "allowance" of between €3 and €15 a week, she said, stressing that this was in line with other workshops throughout the State. She also said that there was no pressure on the "workers", adding: "The money was not associated with output and they could really come and go as they pleased."

Ms Slattery said that the hospital was opening a "brand new day centre" on October 8th, which would provide a wide range of facilities, activities and stimuli for the 47 people with intellectual disabilities who still lived on the campus at Peamount.