Sir, – I am writing to express solidarity with Rosemary Graham in her letter (October 18th) regarding the HSE's policy of emptying large residential homes of people with disabilities and integrating them into the community as outlined in the 2012 New Directions report.
New Directions is not the answer for everyone with a disability. The policy does not seem to allow for the age and life experience of the person with a disability nor for the age of their parents and carers.
It does not suit all people with disabilities to be uprooted from their homes – or from schools and centres they may have been happily attending for decades – to start again in a new and, to them, alien environment.
As the parent of a 50-year-old man with a disability, I am concerned by the HSE’s apparent lack of foresight and planning when it comes to the implementation of New Directions’ policies and the provision of residential and community services.
And as I grow older those concerns grow more urgent and more worrying. – Yours, etc,
BRID COLE,
Dublin 6W.