Tipperary campaigner highlights disability discrimination with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar

The Tipperary autism campaigner, Cara Darmody, has exerted enormous pressure to bring about change.
Her campaign has opened doors to the most important decision makers in the country.

The Ardfinnan girl has recently met with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and with HSE CEO Bernard Glouster to highlight disability discrimination.

These meetings were a continuation of the Labour Party motion some weeks ago that led to a dramatic breakthrough in the Dáil. The breakthrough came when Minister for Disabilities Anne Rabbitte conceded that Cara’s argument about paying for autism private assessments was a legitimate one and that the Government would do that if the HSE couldn’t reach various assessment targets by August 1, 2023.

Cara Dramody told Taoiseach Leo Varadkar that there was terrible disability discrimination going on in Ireland today and that he had to do something about it.
She also told him that there were 17,000 children just waiting on first contact from the HSE and highlighted her three main issues.

FINANCIAL RELIEF
Those included seeking immediate financial relief for families that are paying privately for assessments.
She made the case again with the Taoiseach that a precedent has been set in her brothers’ cases, and that no family should ever have to pay for a private assessment again.

The Taoiseach stated that he had no objection to that happening, once they could make sure that the psychologist is validated.
Cara also used the opportunity of the meeting to seek enhanced accountability in the HSE.
Cara made the specific point that the HSE investigate themselves, which was simply not good enough in 2023. Cara, and her father Mark, sought a Health Oversight Authority and an external complaints system that would hold HSE managers to account.

The Taoiseach accepted that there was no regulation of the HSE at managerial level and undertook to examine the matter in detail.

Cara also used the meeting to seek a full review of carers allowance.
Mark emphasised how a family’s life is destroyed when you have a disabled child to care for full-time in the household, and that the Carer’s Allowance, Domiciliary Care Allowance and the Incapacitated Child tax credit does not properly take that into account.

The Taoiseach agreed in principle that carers who cannot work 18.5 hours as part of carers allowance due to the severe level of a person’s disability, should be in a separate bracket or category, and he undertook to bring these proposals up with the relevant Ministers, Michael McGrath and Heather Humphries.

In a separate meeting HSE CEO Bernard Glouster, congratulated Cara on her advocacy and for sitting both the Junior Cycle and the Leaving Certificate exams at such a young age.
He said he was greatly impressed by her, and said he had followed her advocacy personally long before he became the HSE CEO last November.

He accepted that the HSE has now set a precedent in relation to her brothers’ assessment case, whereby they took the family appointment as theirs, and then paid for it.

This was a massive breakthrough as this is the first time that the HSE has acknowledged that it is their responsibility to pay for such assessments.
“It is fantastic to be told that my argument is a legitimate one,” said Cara.