Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to read a letter that was sent to the Taoiseach more than six months ago by a local disability activist in Donegal, Mr. Frank Larkin. In his letter, he describes his experience as a person with disabilities travelling to Leinster House from Donegal in order to hand in a petition to the Taoiseach's office with more than 500 signatories calling on the Taoiseach to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities while he was forming his new Government in May. In his letter he wrote:

Let me give you a couple of examples from personal experience whereby I have been denied my rights:

1. Just this morning when I left Donegal to come here I got the bus. In order to get on that Bus, I had to ask two people to help me on to the Bus as accessible public transport does not exist in Donegal. This always is a humiliating and embarrassing experience.

2. In order to maintain the level of independence I currently have I decided to apply for personal assistance some time ago. I was subsequently offered 2 hours a week. This equates to around 17.5 minutes a day. How I am supposed to use this time in order to maintain my current level of independence, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on [this].

3. Despite having a number of excellent qualifications I am still no further forward in being able to find meaningful employment.

To date, Frank has not received a reply from the Taoiseach's office or that of the Minister of State. His honest account of his life as a person with a disability living in Ireland should be a reminder to us all that for far too long people with disabilities have been left behind in this country. Frank should not have to feel embarrassed. It is the Taoiseach who should feel embarrassed because it is his Government that has failed once again to meet the target for ratification by the end of this year. It has been ten years since Ireland signed the convention, but we remain the only EU country that has yet to ratify it. This is completely unacceptable.

Will the Taoiseach commit to a specific date by which Ireland will ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities? Will he progress the ratification process without delay so that people such as Frank and many others in the country who are living with a disability can live in dignity and on an equal footing to everyone else? We hear the Department of Justice and Equality and the Department of Health are blaming each other for the failure to ratify the convention by the end of this year. This is disgraceful carry on considering that every Department in the Government is responsible for seeing this through. It is a real indication that no real progress has been made to date despite the establishment of an interdepartmental committee on the convention and the drafting of a roadmap to ratification by the Minister for Justice and Equality.

What are the barriers that each Department claims are stalling efforts to ratify? They seem to be mystery barriers because no one can figure out why it has taken ten years to achieve something that should not be difficult to achieve so long as the political will was there do it in the first place. It is clear that the political will did not exist and we doubt it exists today.

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