Letters to the editor on... Assessment of Need, citizenship rules and our new subscription service

EVER SINCE THE Journal started back in 2010, our readers and their thoughts have been fundamental to our coverage of the news. Here’s what you’ve been saying to us this week. Have something to say? Send a mail to letters@thejournal.ie. You can see our letter guidelines here.

A solution to a problem they created

[Gavan Reilly: Six months by law. 24.3 months in reality. Ireland's disability numbers don't add up]

Dear Editor,

The Minister for Children, Disability and Equality Norma Foley has presented the Disability (Amendment Bill) 2026 to the government. The Bill is designed to improve the Assessment of Need for persons with disability.

It should be noted that the reason for the Amendments Bill is because of the absolute failure of the Assessment of Need process, arising from the Disability Act 2005. The Assessment of need was poorly thought out, poorly designed and executed and through a lack of planning was eventually found to be unworkable.

An Assessment of Need is the only legal right that a disabled person has in Ireland. For a number of years, Senator Tom Clonan, has been promoting a bill to obtain rights for people with disabilities, which raises a most fundamental question to the notion of Assessment of Need: what purpose does Assessment of Need serve, if the person does not have a right to a service based on that assessment?

A family member, as a carer of an intellectually disabled person, is untrained, unpaid, always available, and provides service and care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no statutory entitlement to a break from care and service, through respite care, day services or community care. The family carer’s lack of entitlement, places them, as well as their disabled person, as a dependent of the State.

Under the Poor Laws 1834, people were expected to care for themselves, and if they could not, they were taken to an institution. It was during this period that large Mental Asylums, Magdalene laundries and workhouses were created.

Historically, the majority of services for intellectually disabled people were provided on a voluntary basis, mostly run by religious orders of Nuns and Christian Brothers. Services provided by the state were inappropriately in large psychiatric hospitals, alongside patients with mental illness.

For decades, families have expressed concern about State investment in intellectual disability services. In 1978, Annie Ryan led a hunger strike, when her 14-year-old son was placed in the inappropriate setting of a large psychiatric hospital. Kathy Sinnott, in 2001, established a constitutional right to appropriate education for her son, based on need. However, the State successfully appealed the right to education for persons over the age of 18.

Decades of poor government planning and underfunding for intellectual disability services is unfair and inequitable. The inequity and unfairness to family carers and persons with intellectual disability and autism will continue as long as policymaking for disability services remains as ‘wall papering over the cracks’.

Seamus Cowman,
Professor Emeritus: RCSI, University of Medicine and Health Sciences,
Trustee & Board Member of INSPIRE All Ireland Charity and Social Enterprise for Mental Ill health, Intellectual Disability, Autism and Addiction.

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Moving goalposts

[Taoiseach signals five-year citizenship rule may be retained for workers already in Ireland]

Dear Editor,

I moved to Ireland in January 2023, aged 50, and have since made it my long-term home. The five-year reckonable residence rule was one of several factors I considered when deciding where to build the next stage of my life.

I accept that citizenship is not guaranteed and that the government may introduce an eight-year requirement for future residents. The issue is whether it is fair to apply that change without transition to people already several years into the existing system.

My Stamp 4 originated through the Immigrant Investor Programme. Interestingly, when the government closed the IIP in 2023, it did not simply terminate cases already in the system. Existing cases continued to be processed for years afterwards.

That illustrates a sensible principle: policy can change prospectively while reasonable provision is made for people who acted under the previous framework.

For almost four years I have maintained my residence in Ireland, become self-employed and paid tax here. Similar long-term decisions have been made by people on many different immigration routes.

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If eight years is considered appropriate for future arrivals, that does not prevent Ireland from providing reasonable transitional arrangements for people already legally resident and accumulating reckonable residence under the five-year system.

That would not prevent reform. It would simply avoid changing the rules halfway through.

Kind regards,

Reno Chen,
Dublin

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Editor’s Response

[The Journal has launched a subscription service - here's why you should join]

Dear Sir/Madam,

Regarding the new subscription to The Journal: after reading the frequently asked questions section regarding subscriptions there is no mention of what happens if I subscribe and then read an article I want to share with a family member or friend who is not a subscriber to The Journal.

At the moment whenever I read an article which may be relevant to someone I know, I can then share the link on WhatsApp 

For example in a recent article on The Journal, it featured a story about a possible primary school teacher strike action which would have had an effect on family members, so I shared it.

Would the above be possible if I was a subscriber and they were not? 

From the editor: 

Thanks very much for your email and your interest in (and reading of) The Journal.

The vast majority of the articles on The Journal will still be free to access so anyone you share them with will be able to read the entire story (however, they will have to be logged in – you can do that just with an email address).

The one you referenced about the work-to-rule in the public sector remains accessible without a subscription.

On the percentage of content that will be subscriber-only, anyone you share the article with will see the first few paragraphs, but the rest will require a subscription. However, gift article links are something we hope to offer in the future. Earlier today, I shared your email with our product and development teams and the heads of those departments were enthusiastic about the idea.

“It would be a very good feature to have gift articles” and “Gift articles would be great to add to the roadmap” were two of the responses from those teams to your email. So I’d say you have hastened that project along!

I hope that helps you make a decision to subscribe or not. We appreciate you reading, either way. And, we hope you enjoy the new content we’ve been adding over the past year. 

All the best,

Sinéad O’Carroll,
Editor

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