THE CHURCH of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin has strongly urged the
Government not to cut services for children with special needs in the
budget.
Dr John Neill made the plea during his final presidential
address to the Dublin and Glendalough diocesan synod yesterday.
Dr Neill
is to step down in January after eight years as archbishop.
Dr
Neill accepted that cuts were “an economic fact”.
He urged the
Government not to cut the provision for children with special needs
“which is already seriously undermined by existing cuts”.
“A
society is surely judged not by its wealth or by its poverty, but by its
care of the most vulnerable, the young and the old, and especially
those with special needs,” he said,
Dr Neill also spoke of his
“major concerns” about the worsening problems in education and
healthcare since he became archbishop eight years ago.
There was
constant sniping by politicians and the Health Service Executive at
medical practitioners and “a total failure to address the wasteful
bureaucracy of the system and the outrageous salaries and bonuses paid
to bureaucrats”, he said.
Speaking of his church’s relationship
with the Catholic Church he praised the “real friendship” of Dublin
Catholic archbishop Diarmuid Martin.
He described relationships with the church at an international level as having gone “seriously backwards”.
He
appealed to Catholic laity, priests and bishops with an ecumenical
commitment to “make their voices heard more clearly and at the highest
possible level”.
The media was becoming “increasingly the power in
the land” and was filling a void left by the crisis of confidence in
the Catholic Church, he said.
He spoke of the wider impact of the
economic downturn on Irish society. The “agony of the financial collapse
and banking crisis” was reaching into every part of Irish life, he
said.
The sense of security and certainty were “gone from the
lives of most people” and corruption and dishonesty in the financial
world had “undermined any remaining sense of confidence”.
“What must be avoided at all costs is a sense of despair growing and spreading in Irish society” he said.
Dr
Neill described the “serious sense of disillusionment” with politics.
“There are seldom resignations when corruption is exposed unless such
are forced for purely political reasons,” he said.
This
disillusionment would increase in the next general election if parties
indicated in advance that certain alliances were out of the question
“and then rush headlong into alliances because of the prospect of
power”, he said.
“People are entitled to know what they are voting for,” he added.
On
the impact of Government cuts on Protestant schools he said that “major
changes had been implemented without consultation” and there was a
“sense of alienation beginning to grow”.
“I am aware that this
dialogue is now taking place, but much damage has already been done to
the future of several schools,” he said.
SIC: IT/IE