Society owes a huge debt of gratitude to those who have devoted their lives to assisting and caring for children with disabilities, President Mary McAleese said yesterday on a visit to Northern Ireland.
Mrs McAleese told a conference on childhood disability in the Armagh City Hotel that the past 25 years had seen "phenomenal" changes for the better in attitudes, services, rights and opportunities for those with disability generally.
"The landscape of the past was littered with indignity heaped upon disability, with so many talents gone to waste, so many lives lived on the margins as spectators rather than full contributors, their talents wasted and all of us impoverished as a result," she said.
The President said a huge debt of gratitude was owed "to all those who have made this their life's work and whose passionate advocacy has helped our societies to grow in wisdom and understanding as well as ambition on this issue".
"We want to be communities where everyone matters and everyone feels that they matter."
At lunchtime she visited May Street Presbyterian Church in Belfast city centre and later opened the Corpus Christi housing development at Ballymurphy in west Belfast.
In the evening President McAleese visited the flourishing St Brigid's GAA club in south Belfast and last night attended the golden jubilee celebrations in the Waterfront Hall in Belfast for St Patrick's College, Bearnageeha, on the Antrim Road.
