Jim Moriarty is a 76-year-old Kerry man living in Dublin with his wife and son. "My son is 30 years of age, severely handicapped and doubly incontinent," he told yesterday's meeting.
"If anything happened to either of us, we don't know what would happen to him," he said, adding a point made by several other parents: "If you did get a long illness you would die happy if you thought your son was going to be looked after."
Carmel Goggins, a parent who represented the National Association of the Mentally Handicapped of Ireland, said her life was built around the needs of her son.
"I have got to rush away from this meeting because he's coming home at 12.30. While he has a very good social life, I have none."
This had gone on for the best part of three decades. The only break she ever got was years ago when there was a scheme to bring him and other people with mental handicaps away for a week's holiday each year.
"And that," she said, "was my week for a year."
Like other parents who spoke, she does not want her other children to have to take on the burden when she is no longer there to do it. Their other children, they believe, have lost out enough.
This theme, of the effect on other family members, was mentioned by several speakers. Many spoke for parents who, because of the demands of caring, could not come to meetings like yesterday's.
Sadie Tate of Helping Hands in Tallaght talked of one woman with an autistic son.
"Her family is torn to pieces because this boy gets all the attention. It's no exaggeration to say that the furniture in the house is nailed down. Last week there was no heating in the school and he was sent home for a week. She was a prisoner in the house for that week."
Ms Gina Maloney of the National Parents' Alliance spoke of an 82-year-old woman "who gave her whole life" to caring for her son. Her daughter, who used to help her, died of a heart attack at the age of 42. Her son is 45.
This woman, she said, "can't die", because if she does her son could end up in a nursing home.
Ms Karen Canning, also of the National Parents' Alliance, talked of a 16-year-old girl looking after a 19-year-old mentally handicapped sibling since their mother died.
"She will never get outside the door. She will never have a social life. Her life is gone."