Equal Partners Foundation is extremely disappointed in the provision for people with disability given in the Budget speech. In his allocation of just 182 words to disability, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech referred solely to “measures intended to help people with mobility problems”, thus reinforcing the view that disability is a problem of ramps and wheelchairs, and not one of facilitating access to society, work and independence.

What about measures to combat poverty and social exclusion and measures to strengthen vocational training? Where are the concrete measures regarding employment of people with a disability? Where will inclusion figure in the proposed change to the National Minimum Curriculum?

Whatever happened to Malta’s ratification of the UN Charter for People with a Disability?

Equal Partners remains one of the voluntary organisations which receives meagre financial support from the government (€20,000 in 2010), from which it has to pay €3,600 in rent for a small property leased from the government.

The government’s policy means our 300-plus members with intellectual disabilities and learning im-pairments continue to remain discriminated against, even now in the foundation’s 12th year of operation.

Equal Partners believes that state support must increase and that it must follow the person with a disability throughout his or her life. We believe it is ludicrous to hope that anyone can subsist on 60 per cent of the minimum wage, as people with a disability are expected to.

These people have now become poorer again, together with their supporting carers and parents.