Sir, – The members of One Step Forward (a Limerick-based support group for the parents of children with cerebral palsy) welcome the resignations the CEO and board of directors of the Central Remedial Clinic (CRC) last month. In recent years parents of children with special needs have been repeatedly told that funding for essential equipment, including wheelchairs, adapted buggies and other mobility aids, is not available due to HSE funding cuts. Many children with special needs have to wait for up to 12 or 18 months to receive essential equipment.
At the same time, over the past year, the respite care grant has been cut; medical card applications on behalf of children with special needs have been delayed (and very often denied) and now, in recent weeks, we learn that funds raised in good faith to support the work of CRC, and to help fulfil the equipment needs of our children were, in effect, taken to pay top-ups on the already excessive salaries of senior executives of the organisation.
Despite this, the Public Accounts Committee has not made any attempt to recoup the funds which were used for top-up pensions to those concerned. According to some reports a figure in the millions has been siphoned off to pay top-ups to the salaries of CRC executives. The Public Accounts Committee knows who received these top-ups and should recoup the funds as soon as possible. As parents of the intended beneficiaries of this funding, we request that those involved return these funds without delay. – Yours, etc,
GERALDINE
MONAGHAN,
On behalf of One Step
Forward members,
Rivers,
Castletroy, Co Limerick.