Reflections

The Disability Federation of Ireland (DFI) is the national support organisation and advocate for voluntary disability organisations who represent and provide services to people with disabilities and disabling conditions, including hidden, intellectual, mental health, physical, sensory and emotional.

The overarching objective of the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes (McCarthy Report) was to "Review the scope for reducing or discontinuing Expenditure Programmes with a view to eliminating the current budget deficit by 2011" . At the launch of the Report, July 2009, the Minister for Finance made reference to "meeting public needs and promoting fairness" and the need for "a collective social effort and not one motivated by protecting one's patch or pursuing one's special interest to the exclusion of all else" . He went on to say that

"All of us, including those of us in public administration, will have to accept that the old ways of doing things need to be looked at afresh, so that we can deliver excellent public services with the dramatically lower level of resources now available."