Maman Poulet

The barrage of information from the UK Election campaign and constant polling of anything that moves (or doesn’t!) continues.  Some of it is different though. The UK disability organisation and service provider Scope commissioned research of people with disabilities to see what issues are important to them and the results were published today.

An online survey of 431 people with disabilities showed that public services and benefits were the most important issues followed by social care (personal assistance and other supports for independent and community living.)  Over two thirds of the panel indicated that a political party’s policy on disability issues would effect who they voted for.   The full results of the research can be accessed here.

Scope have been running a campaign during the election entitled Polls Apart to highlight the difficulties that many people with disabilities have in casting their vote.  They are working with polling organisation Com Res to form a more permanent panel of disabled people to be polled on issues so not only at election time.

Any polling organisation interested in this type of work here? Any disability organisation interested in promoting the views of people with disabilities rather than the staff or the families of people with disabilities?

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The final play in the Peacock’s series the Darkest Corner is James X written and directed by Gerard Mannix Flynn and it concludes in the Peacock tonight.

However tomorrow evening, Sunday May 2, Mannix/Far Cry Productions have arranaged an accessible performance in the Green Room of the Holiday Inn in Pearse Street, Dublin 2. The production will have Irish Sign Language interpretation and according to this comment from Mannix there is no entrance charge.

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Tonight No Escape opens in The Peacock Theatre and there have been a number of developments since I wrote about the lack of access to The Peacock and the rights of people with disabilities to both access the venue and bare witness to the work of Mary Raftery and others.

After some further discussions and suggestions from myself and others the Abbey have tonight released a statement outlining their intentions both regarding future access to the venue and also the staging of a performance of No Escape in an accessible venue next week.

The Abbey Theatre regrets that the Peacock Theatre is not accessible to patrons who require wheelchair and disability access. The Abbey Theatre has already made contact with the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport to highlight the
current shameful situation.
Director of the Abbey Theatre, Fiach Mac Conghail said, “An architect has been retained to design, cost and work out a schedule to implement the changes necessary to make the Peacock Theatre fully accessible. I also will be writing to
Minister for Tourism, Culture, and Sport, Mary Hanafin T.D. to seek a meeting on this issue and Paddy Doyle has agreed to join me.�
On Tuesday 20 April, there will be a performance of NO ESCAPE in the Liberty Hall Centre. This is a fully accessible space. The performance will take place at 8pm, for further information please contact the Abbey Theatre box office at (01) 8787 222 or visit www.abbeytheatre.ie

So if you know someone with a disability who would be interested in attending please let them know!  People without disabilities might also consider attending on the night in support of accessible venues and the rights of people with disabilities to respect, dignity and protection from abuse in the future.

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Update: The Abbey released a statement this evening in response to this post and other queries regarding access to the Peacock and the forthcoming productions.

A play opens next week in Dublin – a piece of documentary theatre on the Ryan Report on abuse in institutions.

Written by Mary Raftery, No Escape is the first of a new season of plays commissioned by the Abbey which looks at abuse in state funded institutions for children in Ireland.  The series is called the Darkest Corner and will include a reading of 1961 play The Evidence I Shall Give, and a production of James X written by Mannix Flynn.

For people with disabilities the Ryan Report was very significant in documenting some of the abuses faced by children with disabilities in schools and residential services.  Chapter 13 of volume 3  of the Ryan report examined reports of abuse in locations for children with intellectual, physical and sensory disabilities.   Adults living in residential services in Ireland today still don’t have independent statutory inspection or monitoring of the services that they receive that are paid for by the state (FYI approx €1.6bn per year is spent on all types of disability services in Ireland)

The nature of my day job means that I rarely speak or comment due to confidentiality on these and other related issues but I was so happy to see that the Abbey were looking at this area of Irish life and that someone with the pedigree of Mary Raftery was involved in taking the report and writing it for performance. I’m sure that it will not be something that can be watched with ease or comfort but the story is important to be told.

Ironically I won’t be able to go and see it and neither will many people with disabilities as the productions in this series, the Darkest Hour, are being staged in one of the most inaccessible theatres in Dublin.   I have been to the Peacock once when I was a lot more able for the stairs and I vowed never to return. Now I’m not able to and neither are many other people with disabilities.

I wish that state funding of arts spaces could be equality and access audited. I know that these are indeed hard times for the arts world but I think that spaces that cannot be accessed by everyone should simply not be used in the staging of performances.

Maybe the management of the Abbey could see that at least one performance in this series could be staged in an accessible venue (and I mean a place that has more than 2 places for wheelchairs so no not the Abbey either) in the next few months.  The history of abuse of people with disabilities and other children who were forgotten by the state is something that disabled people have the right to witness and own too.

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I was lucky enough to see Mat Fraser perform most of his new show ‘From Freak To Clique’ when he visited Dublin in December. I’m delighted to hear he will be back again this Thursday at the Axis in Ballymun with a full production and think you should go see him because he’ll wreck your head (in generally a good way!)

I’ve followed his work on television and podcast over the years and enjoyed being made uncomfortable, laughing uncontrollably and often being furious. The chance to see him last year performing a striptease, doing all the wrong right things with prosthetics and re-enacting the freak show genre is something not to be missed.  He’s very very bold (aka cheeky). There are also jokes about the paralympics and other issues which you won’t hear being made too often in the mainstream.

Fraser’s show charts the history of disability on stage, screen, in music, sport and ridiculing real life, including his own career. Using his trademark brand of PC free comedy, songs, poetry and characters, this will engage, challenge, and charm audiences into submission. With sexy songs and poignant poetry, subversive striptease and mutated magnificence, this is not a show for the easily offended, or under 16’s!

I hope he gets a full house and heres to getting to see a lot more disability theatre and performance in Ireland in the years to come.  (Also see his interview in Saturday’s Irish Times)

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h/t:Feministe

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New appointments to the board of the National Disability Authority have been announced just in time for the holidays when few will be noticing.

Appointments to the Board of the National Disability Authority

In  exercise  of the powers conferred on the Minister for Justice, Equality
and  Law  Reform  by  the  National  Disability  Authority Act 1999 and the
Disability Act 2005, the following named persons have been appointed to the
Board  of  the  National  Disability  Authority  with  effect from the 21st
December 2009:

Mr. Peter McKevitt, Chairman [Rehab Group Senior Manager]

Dr. Tony Bates [CEO of Head Strong]
Ms. Caroline Burrell [Green Party]
Mr. Frank Cunneen [previously chaired the Health and Safety Authority]
Ms. Tara Cunningham [Release Speech Therapy Organisation]
Mr. Colm Desmond [Principal Officer - Dept of Health]
Ms. Fiona Duignan [Policy and Projects Manager Inclusion Ireland]
Ms. Linda Grealy [Civil Servant - Representing Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform]
Mr. Shane Hogan [NDA Staff reprepsentative]
Mr. David Joyce [Equality Officer ICTU]
Mr. Des Kenny [CEO NCBI]
Ms. Mary Lavelle [Head of Counselling, Insight Counselling Centre, Fighting Blindness]
Ms. Joanne McCarthy [Senior Policy Executive, DFI]

The  term  of  office  of  the Members of the Board will run for four years
until 20th December, 2013.

The  National  Disability  Authority is the lead state agency on disability
issues  and  is  charged with promoting and helping to secure the rights of
persons  with  disabilities.  The  Authority plays a vital role in advising
Government  on  disability  policy,  research and standards and ensures the
continued monitoring of implementation of standards and services.

The parts in brackets have been added by me – anyone who has other knowledge of the backgrounds of other board members are free to leave comments. It should be added that members will probably be serving in a personal capacity rather than representing any particular grouping.

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Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Hanafin, was responding to the committee stage of the Social Welfare Bill (No. 2) in the Dáil today – (after Gogartygate). The bill provides for the cuts in social welfare of 4.1% for all social welfare payments for those under 65 and a cut in childnd I benefit. I heard her roll out the following:

I am pleased Deputy McEntee raised the issue of deaf people. One could conclude from the contributions of Deputies that blindness was the only disability. While blindness is a terrible disability, in fairness to people with other disabilities I am glad Deputy McEntee specifically referred to deaf people.

Deputy Róisín Shortall: That is a cheap shot.

Deputy Mary Hanafin: Unfortunately, those who receive disability or invalidity payments will be affected by the cuts. Deputies have asked how much it would have cost if we had not reduced payments to those in receipt of disability payments and so on. The cost of not doing so would have been almost €108 million. It would have been necessary to find this expenditure in other Departments or in my Department’s spending.

Deputy Róisín Shortall: What about tax breaks?

Deputy Mary Hanafin: I was asked whether I had spoken to disability groups. I met representatives of these groups separately and they attended the pre-budget forum.

Deputy Róisín Shortall: The Minister is running for cover.

Deputy Mary Hanafin: It is worth repeating that they placed greater emphasis on services on the ground and in the community. They want and need these services – Deputy Crawford is nodding his head – because they are very important to people with disability.

Deputy Seymour Crawford: They are very angry.

Deputy Mary Hanafin: Cutbacks have not been made in respite care beds, day care places, primary care teams or any other services available to people with a disability.

Deputy James Bannon: Has the Minister visited hospitals in Longford and Westmeath?

Deputy Mary Hanafin: An additional €10 million has been provided to deliver more home care packages. The choice facing us was whether to reduce payments, bad as such a step is, or place the burden on the Department of Health and Children. I believe that if one reduced services by more – there are many with disabilities who would agree—–

Deputy Róisín Shortall: That was the Government’s choice.

Deputy Mary Hanafin: —–it would have impacted upon such people more seriously.

Ah Day Centres – Person Centred rather than Day Centred seems such a long long way away. And Nothing about us without us even further.

The Service providers do all the talking to keep their services and their clients in those services and the NDA do the policy whispering and the Ministers the weak excuse making.

I doubt anyone representing people with disabilities argued for an income cut over a service cut. The cost of disability is not factored into payments as it is so it would be farcical for groups to favour a cut in payments.

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The vote on the Social Welfare cuts in #budget10 is taking place tomorrow so that TD’s don’t have to get it in the neck when they go home at the weekend.

I assume whatever happens with the vote that we might see a new version of this video and that the campaign won’t die down. Unlike older people, people with disabilities and their carers, children and the unemployed are not as mobile to protest or vote for that matter.

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Tonight I’ve been delving into the book of estimates released today in addition to the budget which I was tweeting throughout the day.

Isn’t it just miraculous when lots of agencies that deal with peoples lives and provide services directly to people are having their budgets slashed that one – the National Disability Authority (NDA) – has had it’s budget increased by 23%. Yes thats a near 6 times increase in percentage terms of the cut (-4.1%) that all the disabled people will have to take who are in receipt of social welfare.

The disability service budget in the Department of Environment and Local Government has been cut by 32%.

The Equality Tribunal has had a cut of 8% but the Equality Authority has been untouched after it’s 43% cut last year. Oh we should be grateful for small mercies I hear you say, well we could if people actually received any assistance and these organisations weren’t politically addled or kneecapped.

The HSE has had cuts of 5% across the board and this will mean cuts to all disability services that it funds for the 400,000 disabled people in the state. The budget for disabled people and children’s dental care has been cut by over 33%. A 23% increase in the budget of the NDA – surely this must be a typo??

I await the huge increase in dialogue with people with disabilities that surely must occur now that the NDA has so much extra money! I may be kept waiting.

Maybe they could assist all the disabled people paying huge amounts out of their disability allowance for residential services and now for their medication needed to keep them alive from their reduced Disability Allowance.

There are surely other anomalies in the book of estimates vs. the budget. However I can’t wait to see the strategic plan for the greatly endowed agency which provides advice to the state on disability issues.

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