Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Kay McShane grew up on Spike Island in Cork Harbour. She survived polio in her youth and went on to win a silver medal for Ireland in the marathon at the 1984 Paralympics, and two bronze medals in 1988 as well. She died aged 70 in 2019. The Cork County Council-owned Spike Island Development Company planned an exhibition on her extraordinary life and achievements for this summer but the exhibition is now in jeopardy because Kay's family quite rightly refused to facilitate an event that would have excluded Kay and other people with disabilities. How so? The bus from the island’s ferry dock to the exhibition centre, way up on a hill, is not wheelchair accessible. It would cost a mere €8,500 to make it so, but the council-owned development company says it cannot afford to do so. Will the Taoiseach agree this is a sorry state of affairs in the year 2023 and undertake to contact the company to see that the issue is resolved, and that a heroine of Irish sport can be celebrated this summer in the way she should be?

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