The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
FIVE people with intellectual disabilities from Newmarket-on-Fergus are set to get new homes in their own parish.
The Department of the Environment is to provide €290,000 to enable the purchase of a number of units at Boheroan.
Local voluntary group Action for Adults with Intellectual Disabilities have been involved in seeking the funding. Project co-ordinator Christine Callinan told The Clare Champion about the benefits of providing people with intellectual disabilities with their own homes.
“There’s going to be accommodation for five people with intellectual disabilities, four men and one woman. There’s going to be a three-bedroom apartment where there’ll be two lads with disabilities and a support worker. Then there’ll be a two-bedroom apartment where there’ll be two lads with disabilities and another two-bedroom apartment where there’ll be a lady with a disability and a support worker.
“The lady that has the support worker is currently living in Ennis but is from the Newmarket-on-Fergus parish and was interested in moving back and her parents would prefer for her to live near them. The four men with disabilities are all living with their parents at the moment. The parents are ageing, some of them have health problems, so it’d be great if they were all living in the same area. The four men would all have gone to St Clare’s School together and they’d be similar in age, all late 30s and early 40s, and they’ve been friends for a long time,” she said.
Action for Adults with Intellectual Disabilities is the successor of an earlier local branch of the Clare Federation of People with Special Needs.
It has been active for a number of years now and Christine has been involved since it began. “When we started off nine or 10 years ago, I was organising social events for people with disabilities. We’d meet for lunch or go to the cinema or have dinner, those kind of activities, and the parents would meet too. Obviously, as the parents are getting older, there’s a concern over where adults with intellectual disabilities will live. They are all born and bred in Newmarket parish so they’d prefer to live in Newmarket and to live independently in the village would be very important.”
She said the allocation of the €290,000 is fantastic news, which has been sought for years. “It’s a tremendous amount of money and we had been looking for that money for seven or eight years. We had liased with Banner Housing Association and its housing officers and we also liased with the Brothers of Charity.
“The €290,000 is the money for the actual building and changes like interior walls, painting, kitchen units, things like that. The families, out of their own budgets or through fundraising if necessary, will provide the furniture and things like that. A certain amount of fundraising would have been done in the past so we have a small amount of money.”
There will now have to be discussions with the HSE, she indicated. “The four lads are in the day service with the Brothers of Charity so they’d only be allocated a budget for a day service and that comes from the HSE. So the next big step will be for the HSE to allocate a residential budget and that’d cover a rota of support workers, for evenings, night-times and holidays. While the lads have certain skills and abilities, they would need a support worker in the evenings or night-time or weekends.”
She said getting their own space will make a huge difference to the people involved. “It’s going to make a huge difference to the lads with disabilities. They’re all in their late 30s or early 40s and it’ll be their first move to being independent, with supports. For example, when the walls are being painted, they can choose what colours they want. They can pick what kind of furniture they want, those kind of choices. They’ll be more responsible – obviously still having support from their support worker and family – about things like budgeting, shopping, cooking, things like that. It’ll give them an opportunity for more personal development in their own lives and they’ll still have support from their friends and family and the paid support worker. Obviously with ageing parents, some with serious health concerns, it’s a major worry what will happen so it’s a great relief.”
She paid tribute to Clare TD Joe Carey’s support in accessing the funding. The Fine Gael representative said he was pleased that the project is being progressed. “I have been working with this group in Newmarket-on-Fergus for some time. It’s wonderful news that this great project has received funding. What this means is that these adults with intellectual disabilities will now be able to continue to enjoy an independent and self-fulfilling life, through the close co-operation and assistance of the Brothers of Charity in the village of Newmarket-on-Fergus where they were born and raised.”
