Newport man takes disability fight to the floor of European Parliament

A Newport man was part of a group who went to Strasbourg to campaign for the rights for Disabled
Mr Tom Chambers, a disability campaigner, was part of the 54 Irish representative and was the only Mayo man to travel to the European Parliament for a series of meetings called the “Strasbourg freedom drive, 2007” last month.
The group met with representatives from other countries during their two day stay in September. They had several meetings to lobby MEPs for rights for the disabled.
Mr Chambers, who went as the representative from the Centre for independent living, said the journey was taken by ferry as the last time he was part of the contingent he had an accident when accessing a plane and lost his luggage, this time he took the ferry with the group, The disabled People of Clare who travelled from Cork.
On the first day Tuesday september 03 they had a meeting with the 13 Irish MEPs including Mr Brian Crowley, who Mr Chambers said was in hospital with him after he had a car accident in 1981, which left him paralysed from the waist down.Later that day, the group met with Ms Marian Harkin, Mr Jim Higgins and Mr Sean Naughton, the three Connaught MEP representatives. they spoke to them on disability issues, such as personal assistants, home help, social housing, carers allowance, aids and appliances in homes and the lack of transport to and from Mayo General Hospital.
Later that evening the group happened to meet with E U Commissioner Mr Charlie Mc Greevy. Mr Chambers said at the meeting he raised issues of access which were “close to my heart". He told him he was not happy with audits ,etc carried out by Mayo County Council and the local town councils. He questioned the new Disability Act and noted the work being done by the council was not complying with these regulations.
He also raised the issue of disabled parking bays. “there are quite a few of these around Mayo but very few of them can be accessed by wheelchair users.”
Mr Mc Greevy, he said, agreed to look into this.
On Wednesday, september4th,the group met with 13 other freedom fighters’ from other European countries. They marched outside the European Parliament and Mr Chambers said“ ,I was very proud, as a Mayo Man, to look around and see four county flags flying high” During this time they read a letter of demands to Mr john Howitt, MEP, President of the European Independent living group. they also read this letter to Mr Hans-Gert Potering, President of the European Parliament and he was presented with a t- shirt, sponsored by the Norwegian delegation.
At 3.30pm that afternoon they had an inter group of disabilities meeting. At this, Mr Chambers and the delegation took part in a two hour discussion in the main chamber of the parliament and posed questions to the MEP’. At the finish of this, the group sang" we shall overcome " which was a proud moment as they were the only group to ever be allowed to sing in the chamber.
The climax of the evening was a barbeque, attended by the delegation, which was held at the European Youth Centre which is owned by the Council of Europe. During this time ,a minutes silence was held, for a good friend of Mr Chambers and a member of the freedom drive campaign, Mr Sean Brennan, Sligo who had passed away eight weeks previously. In the letter, presented to the parliament, demands such as as five percent funding from foreign aid be set aside for disability concerns, de-institutionalisation and a policy for personal assistants in Ireland, an airport service, accessibility of primary care centres and local authority funding were asked for.