Richard O'Donoghue: Disabled access failures demand common sense
Richard O'Donoghue addressed the chamber on the everyday barriers faced by people with disabilities, citing the testimony of Maurice Noonan and the persistent lack of wheelchair-accessible facilities. He urged the Minister to adopt simple, common-sense reforms - from grant-aid for accessible toilets to better reuse of returned equipment - to restore equal access.
Personal testimony and everyday exclusion
Richard O'Donoghue recounts what Maurice Noonan told him about losing out on social milestones because venues lacked wheelchair-accessible toilets. The speech highlights how basic design oversights - for example, toilets placed up steps - exclude people from ordinary social life.
Equipment waste and bureaucratic failure
O'Donoghue describes wheelchairs and other assistive devices sitting unused in warehouses while people wait years for replacements. He argues that existing systems prevent safe redistribution of serviceable equipment and that this is a clear policy failure.
Cost of living and equality consequences
The deputy links these access failures to the wider squeeze of the cost of living, stressing that people with disabilities are being treated as second-class citizens. He calls on the Government to introduce grant-aid incentives for businesses and to simplify interim arrangements until permanent solutions arrive.
Commonsense solutions for immediate relief
O'Donoghue concludes with a practical appeal: simplify processes, apply common sense and remove avoidable barriers now. The speech is a call for targeted, achievable reforms to ensure equal participation in daily life for people with disabilities.
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Thank you Chair. Minister, the cause of living for disabilities has been echoed across the chamber. But if we start off with disabilities and things that we could have done even before we came to here, which has been asked for. Maurice Noonan was here from Granagh last year, himself and his partner, both wheelchair users. We're here in the chamber and simple things of what he told me about what he lost out in his childhood. Now Maurice is the same age as my son, he's up on 25 now. 21st, 18th, because he couldn't get into any of the places because places didn't have wheelchair accessible toilets. That's still ongoing, that in pubs, in places that they go out to socialise, that that's still not there. Because that's because there was no incentive put in by government to make sure that businesses would get a grant aid system to make sure that they have a disability toilet for everyone. No matter how small the businesses, or how big the businesses, they should have the facilities for everyone. So that excluded him from going to 18th and 21st. He even gone out with his friends. Simple things like that. Another thing that struck me was people that have outgrown their equipment and they hand it back. It's in a warehouse. And you're not allowed to give it back out. Even though people have offered to look at it, if it's a wheelchair or something like that, they will look at it, they will go through it and make sure that it's... People have outgrown different parts of wheelchairs. And you have them sitting inside in warehouses. And there's children and people that are looking for a pick-up and you can't get into them. And the systems that are there at the moment, you'll be waiting two years for a piece of equipment that's sitting in warehouses that's perfect that you won't allow them to have. That doesn't make common sense. And now we have the cost of living down on top of this. Everything has gone so, so expensive. But from the point of view of people with disabilities, they should be treated as equals. But they're not. Everything comes second and third. But if people were put in that situation themselves, they'd have a different outlook on life, wouldn't they? If you couldn't hear today, wouldn't you have a different outlook? If you couldn't see today, wouldn't you have a different outlook? But because we don't have that, we don't see it. But government should look at simplifying different things for people with different disabilities, to make things easier in the interim for people until they get what they actually need. And that's the one thing that struck me was when Morris said that, that he couldn't go to an 80 and he couldn't go to 21st. And he'd often go into a place and they'd say, the disability bathrooms are up here, but they're up three steps. People just don't simply think of the basics. And if we couldn't get the basics right, and now we've cost a living to get right. What hope does anyone have if we can't see that? So Minister, I would actually look at common sense, simplify things. It's actually not that hard when you don't think about it.
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