Debt funds could do so much - Kenny

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said 3,000 schools could have been built every year for the money that was originally supposed to fund the promissory note.

Mr Kenny said it struck him forceably when he opened a €1 million school in the west of Ireland what alternative projects could be carried out with the money.

The Taoiseach opened Muscular Dystrophy Ireland’s (MDI) headquarters and “home from home” building in Chapelizod this morning.

He confessed to feeling “inadequate” after hearing testimonies from people with the muscle-wasting illness that leads to disability.

Such people “deal every day with a scale of challenges that those who don’t have that scale of challenges take for granted".

“Think of what you could do for MDI and the other MDIs and the other areas that are challenged when you have an economy that is run effectively, where there is a real effective spends for things. That’s the big challenge facing the Government.

“That’s why we are working with the people to make that right and have the support given to us in Europe.

“Please God, when the economy starts to pick up, these priority areas can be seen to be a priority.”

The facility has been open since April 2011, but the Taoiseach promised he would officially open it at some stage.

It comprises offices, meeting rooms and a four-bedroom apartment specially adapted for people with disabilities to stay in when in Dublin.

MDI chief executive Joe Mooney said that, irrespective of the economic conditions, people like himself who have muscular dystrophy have the same needs.“You still go to bed and get up in the morning. I still need assistance to do things. It is something that needs to be protected,” he said.

MDI represents some 600 people with the illness in Ireland.