At a time of such a
tragedy as the one in Berkeley balcony collapse, it was truly heart-warming to
see how the country pulled together and stood united with the victim’s families
and friends. We also did ourselves proud
recently when we votes ‘Yes’ on the Marriage Equality Referendum and show cased
ourselves as a kind and empathic nation that stands with people who are
sometimes faced with adversity. This is
how I had always viewed the Irish people, until I read the article in The
Independent about how Joanne O’ Riordan was treated on a recent train journey
from Tralee to Dublin.
Joanne O’ Riordan was
born with the condition Tetra-Amelia syndrome and has been a voice for people
with disabilities for the past couple of years.
She challenged Taoiseach Enda Kenny about cuts to allowances for
disabled people, addressed the United Nations and discussed technology advances
with Apple. She has been named Cork
Person of the Month and Young Person of the Year at the People of the Year
Awards.
What happened on her
train journey conveyed that, unfortunately, there are some individuals in this
great country of ours who are not as understanding and kind as I had previously
thought. Joanne and her brother
received abuse on the train after asking fellow passengers to move their bags
out of the space which is designated for wheelchair users. According to Joanne’s brother, no one on the
train stood up for Joanne or moved bags out of the way and he expressed his
utter dismay at the situation in the article.
He spoke about how it had an emotionally traumatising effect on both him
and his sister for the duration of the journey.
This kind of
discrimination and disregard for wheelchair-user travel facilities was
appalling and completely left my reeling after reading what the two siblings
had to endure that day. For a country
who are becoming renowned world-wide as a tight-knit, accepting community of people, it certainly seems we have a long way to go
until we can fully live up to this title.
No comments:
Post a Comment