Mr. Eddie Hennessy:

I suffered a major stroke through heart disease, which left me in a wheelchair for six months. I could not speak a full sentence for two years and was left with severe aphasia and concentration problems. I still have problems reading and writing to this day. When I could, I based my recovery around cycling. I saw Ireland like I had never seen it before from the saddle. I told myself that I must get a camera to record some of my beautiful Ireland, and then I fell in love with photography.

With help from Headway Ireland, I was encouraged to start a business. By registering to open a business, I had to change my invalidity payment to partial capacity benefit. This meant my payment was reduced by 25%, even though I was not making enough money to pay myself. I took the hit because photography gave me back my self-worth, which was totally gone due to my disability. I was basically paying the State back for my recovery and taking the time to learn the business of photography and develop my skills into a world-class brand. That is what I did. CreativeLive, one of the biggest online training companies for creatives, told my story and showed my work to their community of ten million. Robert Evans, a celebrity wedding photographer whose weddings include Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Blake Shelton and many more, flew to Cork to meet me and hear my story in person. In 2018, I was named wedding photographer of the year by a national magazine. My company was growing stronger. I was able to hire an employee to assist me with business activities, which my disability prevented me from doing. The progress was slow but my plan was working. My vision was to establish a structure that would not allow my disability to hold me back and eventually to start taking a salary.

However, I received notification from the Department of Social Protection that my partial capacity benefit payment would be reduced by 50%, without any medical evidence. I appealed, showing my updated medical report, which showed my deterioration from the initial report. It took almost a year to get it reversed. Instead of focusing on my recovery and developing my company, most of my time was taken up with fighting for my partial capacity benefit. The Department does not communicate directly with the public, which was hard for a person with communication problems. I think this started to break me, and certainly made me doubt whether my business was viable with the not so hidden cost of disability. My business incurred approximately 30% more costs than those of my able-bodied competitors.

Getting grants for specialized gear felt like robbing the taxpayer. I was actually told that it was taxpayer's money I was looking for. They looked at every way not to give me the grant and finally I was refused. I eventually sought ministerial help, and the decision was reversed. However, I decided I could not go through that again in four or five years when my specialised gear needed updating.

Therefore, I decided to wind down my business. It is not the social model versus the medical model at source. It feels like “us against them”. I thought creatively and outside the box to overcome obstacles in society, in business and, most importantly, in my recovery, but I could not overcome the State’s disability to see that disabled entrepreneurs can contribute to society.

I have been campaigning for policies and supports for disabled entrepreneurs using my business as a real-life case study for the past five years. The purpose is to highlight to the Government and policymakers the obstacles disabled people have to overcome and to share the findings of my real-life case study with them. It has been a frustrating endeavour, often asking similar questions of dozens of people. They sometimes respond but they never answer my questions.

It is too late for me now, but it is to be hoped my campaign will make it easier for disabled people to set up their own businesses and thrive in society, even for the purpose of rehabilitation. The findings of many reports show strong evidence, but politicians and policymakers continue to sit on them. The politicians accept the answers from their Departments and expect me to accept them too, but I will not. It is not fair.