Greg is a kind, sensitive man. He has an intellectual disability and pronounced mental health difficulties, and when the services he depended on were removed, everything fell apart, his sister Catriona O’Toole tells Noel Baker.
“There have been a few shocks,” Catriona O’Toole says. And then some.
Dr Catriona O’Toole is associate professor in Maynooth University’s Department of Education, and is the older sister to Greg — a man who was placed in prison on remand, primarily due to a lack of alternatives; someone often in distress, a man who has repeatedly rubbed his head so furiously he has created a bald patch, and who during one court appearance was so disorientated by what was going on that he walked over to his family and simply handed them his shoes, asking that they take them home.
Greg, says Catriona, is a sensitive and kind man with various passions, and longtime difficulties — namely, an intellectual disability and pronounced mental health problems. But then last year some of his mental health supports were withdrawn. According to Catriona, the HSE decided that the intellectual disability was the overriding concern; except in his native Co Wicklow, those in disability services believed differently — that Greg’s mental health concerns were paramount. He “fell between the two stools,” she says.
“Ultimately, he is a kind, sensitive man who has a lot to give,” she continues.
Read the full story here
