Mr. Michael Mac Aog?in:

Tá áthas orm a bheith anseo chun labhairt leis an gCathaoirleach agus leis na Teachtaí Dála tráthnóna. Is mise Micheál Mac Aogáin.

My name is Michael Mac Aogáin. I am a 62-year-old citizen of this country, Ireland. I was born and raised in Dublin and have lived for the past 28 years in a rural part of County Wexford. For most of my life I knew nothing of disability. I ran my own electrical services company in the south east and life was good. However, all of that changed at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday, 10 June 2008 when I was involved in a motorcycle accident. I should not be here, but I was given a second chance at life. I got to see my children grow up and become very successful in life.

Following the accident, I was taken from the road by helicopter and spent two weeks in intensive care in Hospital Lapeyronie in Montpellier. I was then brought back by air ambulance and spent ten weeks in Dublin hospitals. I suffered a severely broken left ankle which is multi-plated and screwed to this day. I damaged the phrenic nerve on my left side which leaves me with paralysis of my left diaphragm and has effectively left me operating on one lung for the past 16 years. I broke two ribs on my left side. I broke my collarbone, which is also plated. I shattered my humerus, shattered my radius and ulna, and broke my hand. I have root avulsion of C5, 6, 7, 8 and T1 of the left side of my spine, which left me with flail arm, an upper spinal cord injury.

I am also asthmatic, have type 1 diabetes and suffer from chronic pancreatitis. Following the accident, I employed people to do my work while I had to step back and come to terms with my disability. My mental health suffered from this.

Since 2008, I have applied nine times for a primary medical certificate and been refused each time. The last occasion was on 16 January of this year. My appeal is scheduled for 16 May and I expect to be refused again. I find it strange that the Disabled Drivers Association of Ireland and the Irish Wheelchair Association consider me as being a disabled driver and yet my Government does not. It seems to think I am not disabled enough and has penalised me financially by not giving me a primary medical certificate.

In 2017 at the age of 55, I started an honours degree course in applied social studies which I completed with first class honours. One of the modules of this course was disability studies and included the UNCRPD. I believe that my Government is in breach of Articles 4 and 20 of the convention. Article 4 states: "States Parties undertake to ensure and promote the full realization of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all persons with disabilities without discrimination of any kind on the basis of disability." Article 20 states:

States Parties shall take effective measures to ensure personal mobility with the greatest possible independence for persons with disabilities, including by:

a) Facilitating the personal mobility of persons with disabilities in the manner and at the time of their choice, and at affordable cost...

Before Christmas of last year, our Government spent a large amount of taxpayers' money on advertisements on the national airwaves stating that disability rights are human rights in accordance with UNCRPD. However, it continues to discriminate against disabled people like me. By denying me a primary medical certificate, I would argue that the State is in breach of these two articles because it discriminates against me purely on its perceived view of my disability. The State only allows for lower-limb spinal cord injuries, leg paralysis or loss of lower limbs. Therefore, it is discriminating against me on the basis of my disability. I again refer to Article 4.

I argued to the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal that if I had lost my leg or foot, I could get a prosthesis and walk again, and it agreed. If you are left or right-handed, I ask you to put your left or right hand behind your back and show me how you tie your shoelaces, do up a tie, zip up a coat, butter a piece of toast or cut up meat in a restaurant. While I could walk again following a leg amputation, if I get a prosthetic arm, will I ever get the full use of my hand again? Which is the more disabling of injuries? However, my disability is not considered severe enough to allow me to be considered for a primary medical certificate, which I consider to be a blatant breach of UNCRPD.

The new Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal was meant to be non-judgmental in adjudicating on people's disabilities against a new set of criteria for primary medical certificates. However, it is still judging people against the outdated criteria, making decisions that have a severe detrimental effect on people's lives, which it knows to be wrong.

They know this to be wrong because the last board of appeal stated en masse that the criteria were too restrictive.

The Government is certainly not trying in any form or manner to implement any of the articles previously mentioned. The State continues to discriminate against the disabled population in many ways and on many fronts. Discrimination by the Irish State against persons living with disability in 21st century Ireland is something about which we as a nation should hang our heads in shame in terms of not providing care, equality and social inclusion to people living life with severe disability, through no fault of their own.

If the Irish Government wants to improve its compliance with and adherence to the UNCRPD and provide access and human dignity in public services, it needs to ensure all Government agencies and bodies adopt the HIQA and HSE principles when dealing with people living with disability, namely, the FREDA principles - fairness, respect, equality, dignity and autonomy.

From listening to me today I hope members take away a concrete understanding of how unfairly my fellow sufferers of this injury and I are treated by the State, in contravention of the UNCRPD, in particular by the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal. We are treated with disdain and contempt for having the audacity to challenge its judgment on injuries of which it has no understanding or towards which it has no empathy. The board is patronising and condescending towards us in making its decisions not to give us justice in accordance with the UNCRPD. The board passes judgment on the lives of people for whom it has no understanding of how hard and difficult life is with an injury like this. What I hope to take from talking to the members as legislators today is a firm commitment that they will treat us fairly and justly, in accordance with the UNCRPD, and give us the primary medical certificate, which would allow us to continue to work and contribute to society, and move on and recover from this horrible injury.

Finally, I will address the Government and Independent Deputies on this committee who support the Government. They have the opportunity to do what they know to be the right thing and make a profound change in my life and that of my fellow sufferers with a similar disability by making the Government give us a PMC as a condition of their support for Deputy Simon Harris to become the next Taoiseach of our country.

I have given up the opportunity to avail of a medical procedure in a Dublin hospital to come here and talk to members today. I just hope it has been worth it.