MS Ireland will be holding an event in Leinster House AV room on Wednesday, 3rd October 2018 at 10am. We will be presenting the MS Care Centre Business Case and we will be using the opportunity to call on TDs and Senators to provide a further €600,000 in annual investment which would allow us to cater for the increased demand on our Care Centre.
We need your help in contacting TDs and Senators to ask them to come along to the event – if you can attend your local TD’s clinic, please bring the event to their attention and ask them to go along. You can also email them – you can find who your local TD is and get their contact details using this website: https://www.whoismytd.com/
Below is a draft email that you can use – please feel free to adapt the email to include information on your own personal situation and what their support would mean to you.
If you receive a response from your TD saying they intend to go along, please let our Information, Advocacy and Research Assistant Aoife Kirwan know so she can follow up with their office to remind them beforehand – email akirwan@ms-society.ie
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Dear Deputy [insert name of TD],
My name is [insert your name]. I am asking you to attend an AV room briefing on Wednesday, 3rd October at 10am. This briefing will be delivered by the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Ireland (MS Ireland) regarding a request MS Ireland has put forward for further annual investment in their care centre.
The MS Care Centre is a state-of-the-art respite facility. Admitting and welcoming 400 people annually, the care centre not only provides people living with MS and their caregivers a break but delivers a range of therapeutic services, neurological assessments and social activities.
Due to decreased income, the care centre only opens 40 weeks per year. MS Ireland are requesting a further €600,000 in annual investment which would allow them to cater for the increased demand on the service. This would see the care centre open 350 days per year, providing an extra 1,128 bed-nights annually. This would allow additional people living with MS the chance to benefit from what the care centre has to offer (there are over 9,000 people living with MS in Ireland). Further investment will not only support people living with MS, it will also support voluntary carers, without whom care in the home would be impossible, putting further pressure on our health system and hospital funding.
[If you have any personal details you would like to add in support of our ask, please feel free to write it in]
As a member of your constituency, I am asking that you support MS Ireland by doing what you can to help secure this additional funding.
Yours sincerely,
[insert your name]