A plan to have an extensive network of community homes for the disabled will have to be completed by the end of this legislature, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this afternoon.
He was speaking to timesofmalta.com after visiting two families in Marsaxlokk as part of the Budget roadshow. At the Aquilina family Dr Muscat met Gianluca, a teenager with disabilities.
Dr Muscat told the family that central to the Government's programme was the pledge to create homes for disabled people so that parents could put their minds at rest on the welfare of their children after they died. (See PN's reaction here)
Asked when the Government would start rolling out the physical infrastructure, 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," he said.
In the Budget no funding allocation was made for the project but Dr Muscat insisted the measure to tax exempt inheritance bequeathed by parents to their disabled children was an important first step.
The Budget also raised the disability allowance parents receive to €20 from €16, a step Dr Muscat acknowledged 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 told the family.
With tears in her eyes, Gianluca's mother thanked him as she explained the constant worry parents of children with disability had on what would happen to their kids after they passed away.
"Removing the tax on inheritance is important for us because as parents we are always concerned as to how our child will be cared for after our death," she said.
As Dr Muscat walked to another house he was greeted warmly by a self-declared Mintoffian elderly woman as "the saviour". 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."
ksansone@timesofmalta.com