Mr. Gabe Cronnelly:

I mentioned in my opening statement that the Immigrant Council of Ireland has an internship for migrants to get the feel of getting involved in politics. There is no reason why such an approach could not be adopted by the various parties to bring disabled people in. Unless these pilot schemes are carried out to try something out it is easier to say it did not work or that it would work if this, that and the other were done.

People make assumptions on behalf of people with disabilities. If you want to know something about disability you should ask a disabled person because he or she will tell you. That goes back to Deputy Hourigan's comments on proving disability. I am sure members have come across the situation as public representatives where a young person comes of age to be entitled to domiciliary allowance instead of children's allowance and so forth and is asked whether that person still has Down's syndrome. That is degrading and represents ignorance of the highest order. Some conditions are for life and no matter what happens in the future they will not change. The same is true of spinal injuries, acquired brain injuries and amputations. Unfortunately I had to witness that myself. A year after my leg was amputated I got a letter in the post telling me I had to go in and do a medical to prove that my leg was still missing. Who comes up with these ideas? Members will have heard of these scenarios and they will be aware of them but a clinical system that does not allow the individuals to think for themselves is being used and that is wrong. My leg is not growing back although I would love it if it did. I had to change my work habits as I had been working in the construction industry and in the blink of an eye, I had to change my outlook in life.

Ms Costello said that we have seen both sides of the spectrum of being able-bodied and being disabled. It has made me a better person because it gives me an open mind to try to understand disabilities more because I am directly affected. I see what I used to be able to do and what I can do now. To me there is nothing I cannot do but it takes me longer to do it. Again, it is a military operation that we have to plan. If you take Covid, for example, if I wanted to go to Dublin I had to prebook a train ticket and if I wanted to come back down and have a disabled companion travel with me, there was no facility in place for me to book a disabled parking spot on public transport. During the height of Covid I would have had to wait for an extra two or three hours in Dublin, where there was a high incidence rate. I would probably have caught Covid in those conditions and brought it home to my family. Capacity was reduced by 50% to allow for social distancing and so forth but there were still plenty of seats available for people with disabilities to sit in. There was no priority given to them even though their needs are more complex. I could not decide on the day that I wanted to go to Dublin at 1.30 p.m.; I would have had to book my seat. I could not do anything off the cuff but if I was an able-bodied person that facility was there.

The issue of the public realm and so forth was raised. The public realm is all well and good and I have no issues with it but people with disabilities are not consulted in public realm planning. For example, if you take someone with a visual impairment, his or her guide dog is trained to walk with the kerb and we have seen outdoor furniture being used in disabled parking spots. Tomorrow is Make Way Day and the blatant abuse of disabled parking spaces is systemic in this country. Some people do not know that the appropriate fine is €150 for parking in a disabled spot, going up to €225 after a month when the normal parking fine is €40. People justify it by saying they only wanted a spot for a minute. Ms Costello will tell you that if we have to walk down the road, we become worn out due to mobility issues by the time we should have reached our destination.

If one goes to Lidl or Aldi, the prime parking spots are right outside the door and in open view in order to make it accessible. If the people directly involved in the consequences of misuse of spaces were consulted, disabled parking would be more accessible. They look well and they have hatch box lines and so forth, however, due to the practicality of their use, many spaces are not fit for purpose. Some are not wide enough. The people concerned and most vulnerable to the abuse of these spaces are not consulted. Rights come first, as far as I am concerned, and policies come afterwards to ensure those rights are upheld. The stakeholders are the people with the disabilities themselves. They are best placed to speak for themselves. I am sorry if that was a bit of a rant. This is my own personal view on the matter and I will argue with anybody over it.