A tear rolled down Marianne Aquilina’s cheek as she recounted to the Prime Minister the anguish that parents of disabled children like her pass through.
She and husband Jesmond yesterday welcomed Joseph Muscat into their living room in the presence of their wheelchair-bound teenage son Gianluca.
Ms Aquilina said the Budget measure to exempt from tax the wealth bequeathed by parents to their disabled children was good. “Parents like us are constantly worried about what will happen to our children when we die and how they will be cared for.”
Disability is a top priority for this government
Dr Muscat met the Marsaxlokk family as part of the post-Budget roadshow in which he is visiting families to discuss aspects of the Government’s economic and financial plan.
The Prime Minister said the removal of inheritance tax for parents of disabled children formed part of a wider plan to create community homes for the disabled.
However, despite the community homes pledge being a central electoral plank no funds were allocated for the initiative in the Budget. When Times of Malta asked about this Dr Muscat said the groundwork will start to be laid out in 2014. “We will not wait for the last year of the legislature to implement this. It will be a project undertaken throughout the legislature.”
At the Aquilinas’ home Dr Muscat noted the €4 increase to €20 in the disability allowance parents received.
However, he acknowledged this was not enough, but part of a long-term strategy to address problems parents face.
Another measure was the allocation of €900,000 to add another 200 places at day centres for the disabled.
“My message here today is that disability is a top priority for this Government,” Dr Muscat said.
After leaving the Aquilinas the Prime Minister was stopped by a self-declared Mintoffian elderly woman. She greeted him warmly and described him as “the saviour”, a term used in the past to describe former Labour Prime Minister Dom Mintoff.
With a smile, Dr Muscat turned down the title bestowed on him by the woman but she insisted: “He [Mintoff] lifted us [from poverty] and you will do the same.”
PN questions commitment of the Government
The PN has questioned the Government’s commitment to build community homes for disabled people after no money was allocated for this in the Budget.
PN spokesman Stephen Spiteri and MEP candidate Kevin Cutajar said the Government should have put the money where its mouth was.
Dr Spiteri noted that by the end of 2014, the Labour administration would have been almost two years in government, wasting time on delivering the pledge by not allocating funds for the project. He also criticised the reduction of some €400,000 in the Budget for the National Commission for Disabled Persons.
Dr Cutajar said he was concerned because a project started by the PN to build a community home for the disabled in Gozo had its budget slashed to €70,000.
While acknowledging some positive aspects such as the creation of more day care centre places, both criticised the lack of incentives to help disabled people find jobs.