Fergus Finlay: People with disabilities battling against a cruel and mad system

We have fought campaigns throughout my lifetime for the rights of all sorts of other people and groups, mainly on the basis of seeking to end discrimination. But discrimination against people with disabilities remains legal.

Last week the independent Senator Tom Clonan wrote a powerful article here about people with disabilities. The headline on his piece, based on a phrase he used, was “Disability rights are in freefall”. I utterly agree with the points he was making, except I need to ask one question. What rights?

A fierce clever lawyer once told me that people with a disability in Ireland have exactly the same rights as everyone else — the right to own property, the right to free speech, equal access before the law — that kind of thing. It was the sort of specious nonsense that would make you want to hit someone. People with a disability in Ireland, uniquely among the rest of the population, have no effective rights whatsoever.