Almost 100 sent home as strike hits Galway

"You're going home.""But this is my home."That was the bewildered response yesterday from several people in Co Galway with intellectual or learning disabilities when they became victims of the carers' dispute, writes Lorna Siggins.

"Your're going home."

"But this is my home."

That was the bewildered response yesterday from several people in Co Galway with intellectual or learning disabilities when they became victims of the carers' dispute.

Some 97 people had to be sent home - many to elderly parents - as the IMPACT action took hold in homes run by two voluntary agencies across the county.

"Routine, stability, familiarity is everything," Mr Patrick McGinley, head of the Brothers of Charity in Galway explained.

Mr Tom Hogan, of the Galway County Association for Mentally Handicapped Children, agreed. "It is particularly difficult for someone with challenging behaviour to cope with the sort of arrangements we are having to make today."

Both agencies were forced to close down facilities, and regroup in others, as IMPACT has a high membership among the employees in both.

The Brothers of Charity has 320 people in homes extending from Galway to Casla, Inverin and Gort, and was forced to send 47 home. The Galway County Association has 110 residential places stretching from Clifden to Portumna, and 15 respite places. The respite service had to be closed, and it could provide only 60 residential places yesterday.

Mr Damien Mullarkey of IMPACT said: "Any request for emergency cover is being examined in detail and is being treated in a fair and equitable manner."

Out on the picket line the mood was resolute. The residents of one group home in Galway had sent their carers a "good luck" card and a packet of fireworks to use in the celebrations when the strike was over.

Blaring horns and waves from drivers on the Galway-Dublin road were cheerfully acknowledged by some 30 carers, mainly women, on the picket line outside the Brothers of Charity headquarters at Woodlands in Renmore.

IMAPCT confirmed that over 200 staff in Galway city were on strike.