Able Bodies

If at any time in your life you are either wholly or partly unable to take care of your own needs – mental or physical, in whatever way and to whatever degree, then you have experience of what it is to be disabled. Alcoholic? Depressed? Broken leg? Asthmatic? Bad flu? Difficult pregnancy? Diabetic? There is a disability wherever there is impairment to typical functioning, social or practical, temporary or permanent. A broad definition runs as follows: "The term 'disability', as it is applied to humans, refers to any condition that impedes the completion of daily tasks using traditional methods."

So, why and how have we established a distinct category of people known as 'The Disabled'? To be disabled, must you need a wheelchair? For how long? A white stick? Should there be obvious atypical behaviour? Are these questions offensive and pointless? How have we, for example, decided to define a sight-impaired person with otherwise typical abilities as 'disabled' when that person is merely differently abled or – more accurately – differently disabled to the rest of us (if we factor in all of the circumstances that can restrict typical functioning)? Is it, in fact, the social and economic construction of 'disability' that is really doing the disabling? Disability ought not to define any human being. The reality is, however, that to a greater or lesser extent, people with disability and their families often lead lives of isolation, hardship and exhaustion. An elderly father has publicly admitted that he has contemplated killing his child before he dies himself to protect his son from the horrors of personal, social and economic neglect that he knows await him when he is on his own. He is by no means the first person to make that admission and tragically we have seen a number of cases during the last few years where this desperate manifestation of parental love has actually been carried through.

"People within the disability rights movement commonly use the term 'disabled' to denote someone who is disabled by society's inability to accommodate all of its inhabitants. An excellent example of Irish society's inability to accommodate all of its inhabitants would be the Disability Act 2005. The Act was enforced in spite of near universal protest from disability groups and many requests to the President not to sign it off. It was arguably the lowest point of what has been an exceptionally low and mean administration where social and community issues of any kind are concerned. The legislative process leading up to the Act was taken seriously by the disability lobby, whose trust and willingness to engage was cynically manipulated. The voices of people with disability were ably represented by the Disability Legislation Consultation Group (DLCG), who put an enormous effort into advising the Government about what was needed, but were ultimately dismayed by the provisions of the Act that was finally introduced: it does not incorporate a single one of the core recommendations which the DLCG made. Despite liberal sprinklings of the term 'rights' throughout the Act, in fact, it does not guarantee any rights. A right without a guarantee is no right at all. Everything, as with The Education of Persons with Special Needs Act 2004 (another disgraceful piece of legislation) is entirely at the discrection of the relevant Minister and confined to 'available' resource.

Many people with disability are unable or do not need public resources to the same extent that typically abled people take entirely for granted: roads, hospitals, libraries, schools, gardaí and so forth. Why on earth should investment in services for them be deemed exceptional, as extra? But ask the Government to fund access facilities or adequate home care or educational services for people with a disability and the intake of breath in Lenister House is audible from Allihies.

So the message from the disability lobby to the Government is this: can you put aside your prejudice sometime soon please? And if there is anyone within the political establishment who has the decency to come to this civil rights debate with an appropriate sense of shame about the present situation and a determination to put matters right, they should get in touch with the Disability Election Pledge Alliance, a coalition of disability support groups around the country whose aim in life is to kick the Disability Act 2005 into touch. There are 340,000 people registered with a disability in Ireland. At least that many people again are directly involved as carers. And these figures do not include those with autistic spectrum disorders. Conservatively, there are therefore approximately 1.3 million people in the disability lobby. It's a lobby that is determined not to be ignored or manipulated any longer.

Miriam Cotton is a disability writer and campaigner, and founder member of the Asperger Syndrome Association of West Cork. She is also a parent of children with autistic spectrum disorders