The Government has failed to provide comprehensively for the well-documented needs of perhaps 10 per cent of the population, those with disabilities, "the forgotten people in Irish society", and the 100,000 people who are their carers, according to Mr Jim O'Keeffe (FG, Cork South-West).

There was justifiable anger and disappointment among carers about the Government's neglect, and for the second successive year disabled groups and their carers had protested outside the Dail, he said.

Opening a private member's debate on the provision for carers and disability, Mr O'Keeffe said his party was "demanding a comprehensive financial package in the millennium Budget" for the disabled and their carers.

This week saw the launch of the £40 billion national plan, he said. "There is plenty of money for roads and railways. There is plenty of money for sewers and social housing. I looked in vain, however, for the section dealing with the forgotten people. I fear again they have been forgotten."

Caring was a business and not a charity, he said. "Carers have to live like the rest of us."

He said there was a carers' allowance of sorts, but the means test - "a case of Scrooge-bureaucracy gone mad" - was designed not for the benefit of those it should serve but as a means to say, "We know you deserve the money but we have found a way to stop you getting it."

The irony was that "this Scrooge-like mentality blindly ignores the fact that these carers save the taxpayers a fortune. Even if every single carer were paid, the taxpayer would still come out the winner".

"Today, 99 per cent of all people needing care are cared for not in hospitals, not in special care centres or residential homes, but by family carers."

Fine Gael's health spokesman, Mr Alan Shatter, said it was indefensible that people were denied personal assistance, including care attendants and home help. Care attendants providing critical personal care at night, weekends and public holidays were paid only £3 an hour. "We cannot justify payments of that level or lower to home helps. On the eve of the 21st century we cannot justify providing 19th century services to people with disabilities and to their carers."

He said the Department of Health would save an estimated £80 million in unspent health levy funds. This was just £10 million short of the total additional funding of £91 million allocated by the Government to disability service provision over the past 2 1/2 years, for which "the Government congratulates itself".

The Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, dismissed Mr Shatter's comment as "foolish, stupid and insulting" and said he was "peddling untruths" by suggesting that there was £80 million in the pot and the Minister was refusing to spend it.

All 100 per cent of the funding allocated for health spending would be used, he insisted.

Mr Cowen stressed that the Government had delivered on its commitment to people with disabilities, as well as to older people and those with mental illness, and would continue to do so.

The Government's commitment to developing services for people with disabilities had been demonstrated by the investment of more than £91 million in the last 2 1/2 years, he said. Some £21.5 million had already been identified for these services in 2000, with additional funding to be announced in the Budget.

The £3 an hour to home helps was part of a phased improvement in the rate of pay. An additional sum of £1.5 million had been provided for 1999 to extend the coverage of the home-help service.

Dr Mary Upton (Labour, Dublin South-Central) said it was "nothing short of a disgrace" that the State was standing over such hourly rates for "the same work that would cost the State thousands of pounds per week if it was carried out in a hospital situation".

In her maiden speech, ail, Dr Upton she said it was "crucial" that the Government make a commitment before the year's end to fund the work of personal assistants from the central Exchequer.

"There is a commitment in Partnership 2000 to provide 5,000 social economy jobs. I believe that the case for developing 1,000 of these jobs into personal assistants is crystal clear.

"Indeed, in the run-up to the negotiations on a new national programme, the social partners too have a responsibility to make sure that this happens."

The debate resumes tonight