Tonight I’ve been delving into the book of estimates released today in addition to the budget which I was tweeting throughout the day.

Isn’t it just miraculous when lots of agencies that deal with peoples lives and provide services directly to people are having their budgets slashed that one – the National Disability Authority (NDA) – has had it’s budget increased by 23%. Yes thats a near 6 times increase in percentage terms of the cut (-4.1%) that all the disabled people will have to take who are in receipt of social welfare.

The disability service budget in the Department of Environment and Local Government has been cut by 32%.

The Equality Tribunal has had a cut of 8% but the Equality Authority has been untouched after it’s 43% cut last year. Oh we should be grateful for small mercies I hear you say, well we could if people actually received any assistance and these organisations weren’t politically addled or kneecapped.

The HSE has had cuts of 5% across the board and this will mean cuts to all disability services that it funds for the 400,000 disabled people in the state. The budget for disabled people and children’s dental care has been cut by over 33%. A 23% increase in the budget of the NDA – surely this must be a typo??

I await the huge increase in dialogue with people with disabilities that surely must occur now that the NDA has so much extra money! I may be kept waiting.

Maybe they could assist all the disabled people paying huge amounts out of their disability allowance for residential services and now for their medication needed to keep them alive from their reduced Disability Allowance.

There are surely other anomalies in the book of estimates vs. the budget. However I can’t wait to see the strategic plan for the greatly endowed agency which provides advice to the state on disability issues.