WHAT A HORRIBLE COUNTRY IRELAND CAN BE

The state and all its machinations is a very powerful enemy. Try fighting Ireland in the courts of our land over an issue that may set precedent for further action against it and you will soon know that the force is against you.
The fully armed battalions of government power will mobilize to crush the individual as surely as the foot of an elephant will crush an ant. The massive resources of the overweight bureaucracy, paid for by the taxes of the individual it is going to war with, creates a Goliath that David simply will never overcome.
Take the recent High Court case taken by Wicklow couple, Cian and Yvonne O Cuanachain on behalf of their son, Sean, requesting the State to provide their autistic child with 30 hours per week of specialist therapy known as Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA), which is a proven method of individual treatment for autistic children.
At present, such children are taught in select mainstream National Schools in dedicated classes. However there are only 12 of these schools in the country and there is a waiting list of 345 children now for places in such schools.
What the O’Cuanachain family wanted was for the Department of Education to provide the funds and facilities to give these children a better future. They had already paid out thousands of euros to have seven-year old Sean have private ABA therapy because they could see the benefits it was giving him.
Last year, the High Court rejected their claim. Last month, the same High Court rejected their claim for the legal costs of taking the action. It deemed that the 5 million euro bill be carried by the HSE, the Department of Education and the O’Cuanachain family.
The first two will simply rob the taxpayer’s pockets to pay the legal eagles, whilst the unfortunate family, burdened already with the daily ritual of caring for their son, is left with the possibility of losing the roof over their heads to pay their share of the costs.
The reason for all the heavy –hitting artillery employed by the State in the 68-day hearing was not to just conquer this single unfortunate family.
It was to make sure that the precedent was not established to allow the other 345 families step up to the Government dining table to seek the crumbs to which they too would be entitled.
Mary Hanafin, so-called Minister for Education, sitting at the head of this particular table in her obnoxious school-marm arrogant mode, dismissed the concerns of the family and even refused a request to visit a school to see for herself the inadequacy of the current welfare her brief provides for theses children.
So a family that had the courage to fight Goliath Ireland if left crushed like the ants for the sake of what? A 10 million euro bill for proper ABA treatment?
Perhaps, even 20 or 30 million euro that it might cost to care for a tiny minority of citizens that the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland states it has a duty of care to. The family is the cornerstone of our Constitution, the ultimate core value protected by its parameters. Read it – it is there in black and white. Watch- as the State JCB drives over it and smudges the ink and the rights of those families enshrined in that document.
A few years ago, Noel Dempsey was Minister for Education. In a Dail debate on a subject unrelated to his brief, he defended one of the numerous costly follies that the Government had ventured into - and lost vast amounts of money on - as an exercise where “only 50 million euro was lost”. Only 50 million euro, you say! Loose change, you might say. Merely the cost of a consultants report, one would guess.
Yes, the State will crush its own when it thinks the “folly” of a family caring for the needs of their child will dent the Exchequer figures, even by as little as 30 million euro.
In addition, in case the impression given is that I have a political axe to grind with Fianna Fail only, let us quickly correct that by saying:
“Hang your head in shame Michael Noonan, ex-Fine Gael Minister for Health, who used all the legal torture instruments of the State to hound a brave mother and wife, Brigid McCole, to her death in 1995, because of the Hepatitis C blood infection scandal. On her deathbed you offered her a pathetic amount on the basis that she stays quiet and the farthings you offered were “without predejuice” to prevent any precedent being set”

You know something folks.
Ireland is a horrible little country to live in, ran by horrible little people!