Disabled discrimination - Prejudices still plague our society

DISCRIMINATION against disabled people is embedded in Irish society, President Mary McAleese said yesterday at the opening of “Get Ahead,” a new lecture series on living with disabilities in modern Ireland.

The lectures, organised by the Association for Higher Education Access and Disability, are intended to bring together the various organisations for the disabled in an attempt to change employment practices and structures.

People with disabilities are frustrated and dispirited by the discrimination that regularly impedes their opportunities to get along in life. The unemployment rate for people with a disability, even graduates, is much greater than the rate for their non-disabled peers.

That is a sure sign that some old prejudices are still in place. Intolerable discrimination still exists, despite work being done to challenge barriers to recruitment.

“Disability officers, access programmes and cross-community partnerships are now firmly embedded in the culture of our universities and institutes of technology, reshaping thinking, reshaping action,” the President explained. But she went on to tell the story of one young man in a wheelchair whose application to do medicine was rejected, even though he had a straight A average in all his exams.

The reason given for rejecting his application was that the buildings he would need to access are unsuited for wheelchairs. It is appalling that educational officers of the medical profession would engage in such discrimination, instead of affording positive leadership.