Maman Poulet

Press release just received…

Greens praise Govt pledge on same sex unions

– Legislation to be introduced by March 2008

The Green Party’s Justice spokesperson Ciarán Cuffe TD has welcomed the Government’s commitment to publish legislation by March 2008 that will give legal recognition to same sex unions. The development will extend to cohabiting gay couples, who register their relationship with a new agency, the same rights under the law as heterosexual couples.

Deputy Cuffe said: “This is a major step forward in Irish equality legislation. For the first time, the Irish Government has pledged to extend to same sex unions the same legal protection as that enjoyed by heterosexual couples. The ‘heads of bill’ – the first step in the legislative process – will be published by March 2008, which is a specific and significant commitment. The Government, with this step, has taken a major step forward in the recognition of equality and diversity in our society.

“I praise the Labour Party for bringing forward their private members motion on civil partnership. The Green Party’s TDs will be voting against the proposal as the new legislation will better address the many legal complexities involved in this issue,” concluded Deputy Cuffe.

More comment later – am watching the debate live on the web at the moment. But first reaction – An agency – A fucking AGENCY???

Updates to this post can be found here

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I get more than a few visits to the blog – Google is kind to me – lots of google searches for Steve Staunton, Niall McElwee, more recently People in Need land here. This morning a commuter from yesterdays Dublin-Waterford 4.25pm train searched visited and went to the post on signage for people with disabilities on trains. I felt her comment deserves a post of its own to remind us of some of the issues (and absolute wankers) facing those who need a seat on a train.

Thanks for visiting Fionnuala, and thanks for doing what you did on the train yesterday – pity you had to!

I have witnessed something obscenely rude and ignorant on the train yesterday evening.

The 4.25pm train from Dublin to Waterford.
It was very busy (as usual) and there were many people standing, beside me were a very elderly couple, the gentleman had a walking stick and the lady with him was quite frail looking (I later found out that they were both in their nineties!!!) and they were standing while young people all around them could see them and were sitting in seats.

I felt very strongly about this (I had no seat either but I am only 27 years of age and able-bodied so I was well able to stand – not very comfortable but it wasnt going to be a problem for me)
I went to the top of the carriage and in a polite manner asked if there was anyone who was willing to give their seats to this needy couple.

I was met with silence – until a young man said that he would put his seven year old son on his lap and give his son’s seat willingly, I thanked him for this and the elderly gentleman was told by his wife to take the seat (as he had a walking stick)
The train continued on and the elderly lady was still standing, eventually a person was getting off the train and a seat became vacant, I brought the old lady down to the seat and she was delighted as she said that she had been feeling rather unwell and faint due to the long time she had spent standing.
I asked a gentleman in the seat next to it if he could move into the vacant window seat as I didnt think that the elderly lady was going to be able to manouvere herself in past him.

I was met with a glare and then a torrent of the following:

“I have paid for this seat (not reserved)and I think that you have victimised the people in this carriage�
I said to the man (in his thirties and able-bodied) that I thought he was a disgrace, he could see how frail and ill the lady was and he should be ashamed of himself!
He did not agree however and continued to argue his point that I should have done nothing and left it as it was!!!!

To be honest I felt like giving him an absolute torrent of abuse but I held my tongue as the lady was going to get what she needed albeit grudgingly.

The man got off at the next stop and while passing me by (I am still standing at this stage and called me a dogooder!)

I mean for god’s sake this couples need was obvious, glaringly obvious!
What is wrong with people? This couple could easily have been his parents or grandparents!!!

Seriously disheartened by this.

Fionnuala.

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Updates to this post can be found here and here

Ciaran Cuffe – is this what doing a deal with the devil is all about? Today on Lunchtime on Newstalk you were laying out the various reasons why it might not be the right time to vote in favour of redebating the Labour Party’s Civil Unions Bill, a motion on which will go before the Dáil in private members time tomorrow night. The Green Party voted in favour of the Bill when in oppostion in February 2007 – yes that’s last February.

Deputy Cuffe has been talking to his Government Colleagues and getting with the programme. It seems we’ll have to wait for the Zappone/Gilligan ruling – even though this was about a foreign marriage recognition and not about civil registration of same sex partnerships – different things entirely Deputy but hey you have swallowed McDowell’s previous mantra which has passed to Brian Lenihan.

But please don’t be telling lesbians and gay men that we’re going to cost money to give equality to and that figures need to be crunched. It’s lame!!! And it’s downright offensive! You ignore the sacrifices, loss, grief, pain and poverty faced by lesbian and gay couples for decades in that chestnut.

We knew that it wouldn’t be long till there was a shining example of the Greens selling out – now they are walking all over us. Ah sure there will be some lame promise or commitment to a change in the next few years and the so called wiggle room will emerge for the Greens to save face. But it’s far too late. Most lesbians and gay men have lost faith in the Greens – and whenever legal recognition of relationships is introduced I can bet that Ciaran Cuffe will be taking to the airwaves explaining why the law won’t grant full equality and offering more lame excuses. ‘Ah we cost too much, we should accept what we get, it’s better than nothing’……..

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So the holiers were blissful and I return post ‘C’mon Everybody‘. What did I miss? Gwan fill me in!?

28 degree Tenerife turned into freezing Dublin quickly enough today and I had my first hot chocolate of the ’season’. Whilst waiting for herself to emerge from Butlers on Henry Street I had a first. I was sitting in the Mothership aka mobility scooter, loaded up with shopping bags having a smoke, snuggled up in my fleece thinking about my sunburn. A man in his early 50’s approached, fumbling in his pocket and produced a load of change in his hand. He looked at the basket of the scooter trying to locate the collection box. There wasn’t one – he looked at me. I exhaled in a cloud of smoke – ‘I’m not collecting’.

The money quickly went back into the pocked, he shuffled off mortified…I laughed cos it was a first and there was nothing else I could do. I would hope the next time he sees someone with a disability, he doesn’t reach for his fecking pocket. But that would be hoping for far too much.

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I did my first wheelie in the mothership the other day. It was not intentional – but the ramp into Easons in O’Connell Street is absolutely shite. It’s the first time I’ve been on two wheels rather than four getting round a corner and it was rather cool! But I don’t think it’s my introduction to extreme scootering… Have a look at these guys promoting the new international sport of extreme chairing. (I have to say I covered my eyes at the last bit…)

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As I pack the bags for the somewhere other than here I find out that one of the Celebrities going to go Wild and ‘raise thousands for People in Need‘ is Michelle de Bruin. Ah I predict the content of Monday’s Liveline already.

Some might query the attempts by someone banned for tampering with a sample etc. etc. is to relaunch herself on the back of activities to fund ‘services for deprived and disadvantaged groups such as the homeless, the elderly, deprived children and mentally and physically handicapped.’  I just query the reason, means, and raising of the money! I’ll leave you to suffer the television.

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Thanks to GI for his usual wizardry and wit!

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‘Charity advertising serves as the calling-card of an inaccessible society’. David Hevey 1992

In 1981 Evan Kemp wrote in the New York Times about the Jerry Lewis telethon in the USA which raises money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

The telethon emphasizes the desperate helplessness of the most severely disabled. In doing so, it reinforces the public’s tendency to equate handicap with total hopelessness. When a telethon makes disabling conditions seem overwhelmingly destructive, it intensifies the awkward embarrassment that the able-bodied feel around disabled people. By arousing the public’s fear of the handicap itself, the telethon makes viewers more afraid of handicapped people. Playing to pity may raise money, but it also raises walls of fear between the public and us.

Insert homelessness, old age, inner city housing, minority status etc. etc. in the place of disabled or the term at that time – handicapped. Lewis refers to people with MD as ‘his kids’. He has raised millions of dollars for ‘his kids’ over the years. Along side the disability movement has opposed his methods and those of disability groups in the USA and the use of telethons and fund-raising and charity models regarding disability. Lewis mocked his opponents by saying ‘If you don’t want to be pitied because you’re a cripple in a wheelchair…Stay in your house!” (hear it here!)

In the UK the Campaign for Accessible Transport which preceded the Direct Action Network ran a highly successful campaign to stop ITV running their annual Telethon hosted by Michael Aspel. Protests inside and outside the studio saw the Telethon ended in 1992.

It was in these protests that the Rights not Charity chant and ethos was born. Indeed UK activists have identified those protests and the move away from the Telethon and the resulting publicity as being pivotal in a move from a welfare model to one where societies disabling forces were tackled from a rights basis. Comic Relief avoided much of the controversy by avoiding the charity model, reflecting on the disabling society and funding organisations led by people with disabilities that self advocated however I still think they use the sad story to grab at the heart strings in the coverage on many causes that they fund.

In the 8 telethons which have been run in Ireland since 1988, €35 million has been raised. In announcing this year’s campaign the People in Need website says that funds will be used to assist those in social need including grants for ‘service for deprived and disadvantaged groups such as the homeless, the elderly, deprived children and mentally and physically handicapped.’

People in Need and the calls to arms – actually make that alms, by Ryan Tubridy and others will not be about the disabling society – it will be about helping out the poor and unfortunate and giving grants to organisations that are generally not led by people with disabilities – because they won’t be applying for the grants for political reasons or indeed not in a position to do so due to a lack of services, access and human rights. People in Need call us handicapped years after the term was dismissed by people with disabilities.

What we as people with disabilities need are rights based legislation and services and not some bloody blue boot waved in your face with people sitting in baked beans, shaving their legs and pushing hospital beds around. I don’t care if the money used is going to make Johnny more able to get a job or get out to the pub (actually I doubt we’ll have any stories about people with disabilities having real lives) – don’t use Johnny’s story or me or our disabilities to make money – or give able bodied people jobs or make Ryan, Gerry, Joe, and others feel all good about themselves on October 26th.

So I’m asking you not to take part in People in Need events in your company or community – instead ask what your company does to make sure it is accessible to disabled people – ask your TD why we don’t have rights based legislation for people with disabilities in Ireland? Ask why there are waiting lists for services and why the costs of disability and society’s inaccessibility are not covered in payments from the state. Ask why people with disabilities are in nursing homes and not in their own homes with services where they would have dignity, respect and human rights and where money would not be wasted.

I didn’t plan it but I will be on holidays far far away from here when People in Need airs, and I’ll also miss the Celebrities in the Irish Jungle thing that will be running all week before hand. I hope there are other voices of dissent and that the debate takes place here and elsewhere on the farce that is the ‘pat the poor unfortunates on the head whilst looking silly’ PR show for RTE, Dunnes Stores and other major Irish and International companies.

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Ok further to yesterday’s post some more very random thoughts on elective medical procedures, women with disabilities, capacity to consent, advocacy, mothers and parents in general. It’s long and you need to click on the link down below to read it all! (First time I’ve used the jump…wonder will it make you read it all!)

I don’t believe that Katie Thorpe should undergo a hysterectomy. The reasons given by her mother for the procedure are that she will not have children or marry and that periods will bring discomfort and indignity and that it will prevent pregnancy and abuse.

Preethi Manuel writes in today’s Guardian about her experience as the mother of a disabled young woman and questions the intentions of Alison Thorpe. In her response she talks about the disabling aspects of society rather than the disability of the individual – this is the social model, it’s not perfect (and neither is the wikipedia on it!) but it informs my life as a disabled woman and my practice in working with people with disabilities.

I could go on and on about bodily integrity etc in this but just take it as given – quality of life for me does not mean performing elective surgery or other procedures to make a carer’s life easier or degender someone, or infantilise them or or or or….

Why is the answer to abuse or an unwanted pregnancy a hysterectomy?

Will a hysterectomy remove the threat of abuse to Katie? No – in the same way Ashley – the pillow angel (and I’m using the description for location purposes only) is still going to be open to abuse in care settings and in her own home even though her parents organised for her womb to be removed and her breast buds and for drugs to be administered. Prevention of abuse/pregnancy was one of the main reasons they used for the procedure

I’ve also had a feminist thought on this subject which might be a bit new in the debate – in fact if anyone locates feminist analysis on this issue please leave a comment!

Why a woman should be mutilated to protect her from the actions of men? Is patriarchy assisting Alison in her desire to infantilise her child and keep her at home longer? Why is there no discussion on preventing abuse and only on preventing the effects of abuse??? Why are we not having discussion about care and support for families of people with disabilities and where people with disabilities live when they cannot live at home or do not want to live at home or should not have to live at ‘home’. Actually what is home?

Capacity – the non issue in the ‘room’

(I’m resisting a tangent here on capacity because this is not about capacity at all but I do have queries about the fact that because Katie cannot speak, read or write that she is considered to be like a baby (interview on RTE yesterday) – her mother or other professionals are unable to estimate her capacity, intelligence etc. etc. but they probably know when she is happy or not and expresses other emotions and feelings. And there are a myriad of ways in which work on communication could be facilitated. The notion of the uneducable is back with us in this story – all too easy for those who resist inclusion and a bit of effort and ingenuity. Elsewhere in today’s Guardian the story of Preethi’s daughter Zahra is told). Continue Reading »

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Shane Hegarty writes about moments where one makes mistakes – and it seems I missed a big one whilst I was avoiding Ryan Tubridy on RTE on Saturday night.

So RTE when are you putting it up on the website? I’m waiting!!!

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