Tom Clonan (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Go raibh maith agat, Chair. I thank the witnesses for coming in and for the presentations. When my son was diagnosed with a neuromuscular disease he was 18 months old and the prognosis put to us was that he would be a wheelchair user. Obviously, that was very shocking and completely alters your sense of what will happen next. I was walking down Grafton Street afterwards and saw a guy in his 30s in a wheelchair and, as part of trying to adjust to the new reality, I asked if I could have a chat with him and told him about my son's diagnosis. I asked if he had any advice for me. He said one thing he found was that organisations that provide services for disabled citizens are fine but you are just another disabled person. He did not mean that disrespectfully. He said that if we could get our son involved in mainstream organisations, for want of a better word - this was 23 years ago - such as the boy scouts or whatever, they would wrap themselves around him and really support and scaffold him. What you do in terms of the variety, inclusion and equity - I am delighted to see Ms Keane uses that word in her title - is consistent with what that man told me 23 years ago. What the witnesses are doing is really invaluable.

In Ireland, when we think about disability and sport it is a narrative that is dominated by things like the Special Olympics and Paralympians. Like the rest of us, the vast majority of disabled citizens do not compete. What is the access or gateway to physical culture for them, notwithstanding all the challenges they face? When I think of my adult kids, they participated in rugby and football at school and as they got older they moved away from that due to injury, work demands or study commitments and find themselves participating by going to the gym or whatever. We do not have the system of leisure centres like they do in Northern Ireland. Do gyms have any code or regulation around trying to get disabled citizens involved and make their facilities accessible? Disabled citizens do not necessarily want to exercise on their own or with each other; they would like to participate with everybody else. Is there something we could do there, in the witnesses' capacity?

I think Ms McTavish said the participation rate for disabled citizens in sport was not increasing.