TOM WAGES WAR FOR IRELAND’S DISABLED

Thomas Chambers is a disability campaigner from Newport who will be in the public eye a lot more over the coming years. Tom has been a committed and dedicated campaigner for awareness, facilities and compliance with disability requirements for many years. Tom is now stepping up his work as he campaigns on not just a local level but country-wide and nationally on disability issues and especially on compliance with the Barcelona Declaration to which all local government in Mayo has signed up to in recent years.

While the declaration itself is approaching ten years of age Tom is stepping up his campaign to have local authorities such as Mayo County Council and Westport County Council meet their obligations under their commitment to the ideals of the Barcelona Convention on the rights of the disabled.

Tom is recently returned from Dublin where he joined protests over the controversial Disability Act which proved so unpopular with the disabled and the groups representing disabilities. Tom has been campaigning to ensure the bill keeps the rights of the disabled to the fore.

So upset with the Bill Tom has also written to the President requesting her to test the constitutionality of the Bill before signing it into law. Tom says he has five major concerns with the Bill. Tom explains that “there must be a clear and unequivocal right to an assessment of need, which must not be resource-dependent. That the services identified in the assessment of need for an individual must be provided within a reasonable and agreed time frame.” According to Tom “the Bill must provide for clear protection of disability-specific resources. The provisions regarding Sectorial Plans must take account of the wider needs of people with disabilities. Each government department with relevant services must provide a Sectorial Plan and finally the Bill must provide for a clear statutory duty on all government departments and public bodies to include people with disabilities in their plans with appropriate monitoring and accountability.”

Tom says that the bill “means that the disabled have to go through too much red tape to get things they are entitled to. It is making it harder for us to get our rights. The Bill seems to be only putting in place another layer of bureaucracy instead of putting money into actual areas that need work such as pavements, hand-rails, parking spaces, tactile surfaces that are the kind of things that make life easier.”

Tom feels that a 10 year wait to have public buildings accessible is unacceptable to the disabled. Trains should be accessible by 2008 but it will be another 15 years before all but transport will be ready. That is too long.”

Tom also has an issue with the Taoiseach’s definition of the disabled which Tom considers to be if you can work you are not disabled. Minister Frank Fahy further elaborated that a disability “substantial restriction in the capacity of a person to carry on a profession, business or occupation. Tom says a lot of employers do not employ the disabled because money has to be spent making the workplace more accessible and suitable for those disabled employees.

Tom says there is “bitterness in the disabled community over the way the Disability Bill has been drawn up” and he points out that the group especially set up to work with the government, the Disability Legislation Consultative Group, in drawing up the Bill walked out as it was so unhappy with the Bill yet the government pressed on with the law making regardless.”

The only good thing to be coming out of the Bill, Tom feels, is the building certificate requirement on the builder that all new buildings will comply with the disability access.

Over the next year or so Tom will be lobbying authorities such as Westport Town Council to deliver on their undertakings under the Barcelona Declaration. Tom is dismayed that local authorities could find themselves receiving fines for not complying with Minster O’Cuiv’s new dictates concerning the use of Irish but if they don’t comply with disability law there is little or nothing done unless someone has the time and money to take them to court. Tom says “In the UK the situation is very different, local authorities and places that provide disabled parking can be fined if they let able-bodied motorists abuse the car parking spaces. It is a requirement under law that disabled bays are monitored and if the monitoring is not up to scratch a local authority facing a fine and a day in court. This has led to increased awareness of the issue in the UK and the shops like Tesco, Aldi and the like hold competitions to see who supplies the best services to the disabled. Compare that with the way things are over here.”

On the local level Tom is looking at ways to improve monitoring of parking spaces as well as the improvement of existing spaces in places Westport “as the number of parking bays for the disabled has exploded in the last year Tom feels that it is a case of quantity and not quality as some of the bays have proven themselves completely unacceptable to disabled drivers and passengers be they in wheelchairs, waling with an aid or suffer sight or hearing problems.”

Tom also takes issue with the car parking charges and toilets pointing out that “under existing guidelines and legislation those with a disabled badge are not required to pay for parking in a disabled bay but no provision for this service has been made. Tom finds the electronic toilets, like those in Westport, which are so common nowadays, are not very disabled friendly and people with disabilities like Tom would not be able to use these toilets without some sort of assistance. “No provision has been made to accommodate the disabled who are supposed to be able to use such a facility.”

It is issues like these that Tom will be pressing for action on with the three town councils and with Mayo County Council.

Tom says he welcomes the setting up of committees such as Westport’s Barcelona Committee as he feels they are the way forward. Tom has in the past sat on similar committees to great success and he intends to step up the campaign for compliance with Barcelona Committee and continue his work lobbying for disabled persons’ rights locally and nationally.