As a disabled woman with a rare progressive neuro-muscular disease, unable to now walk and a full-time wheelchair user who requires personal assistants to lead a full, independent life. I want to answer Gearóid Murphy, member of Cork County Council, who feels ‘no’ voters are opting for the present text as better than that proposed — ‘A no vote is one to keep current text’ (Irish Examiner, Letters, February 22).
That is not why some of us are voting no to article 42B. There are several reasons. Looking at the wording of 42B fully, we find it places the onus on families for the ‘caring role’ of its members by reason of ‘the bonds that exist’.
Many people, live in families where there are no bonds, but rather abuse, neglect, and very poor care being offered. To naively believe that ‘bonds exists’, is particularly dangerous for disabled and older people where statistics of abuse are far higher than for the general population.
We believe the proposed wording will leave disabled people trapped in homes they don’t want to be in, for all sorts of reasons. If abuse is part of their experience this might never change.
We believe the wording leaves little room for disabled people to ‘leave home’ as most of aged children do. Disabled or older family members often feel infantilised, humiliated, degraded, and have control, power, and decision making reduced as ‘carers’ are heard, and they are not.
They reject the ‘caring’ model as ableist and discriminatory, cutting them off from fulfilment and achievement.
Gearóid Murphy states: “Nowhere in the amendment does it exclude the right of people with disabilities to live in the community” [this is true]. But he agrees: “It fails to give people that right, true. However, there is no constitutional right to this at the moment,” again true, but this breaches all human rights and perpetuation of this infringement of human rights through 42B is wrong.
He adds “so voting no won’t create any more of a right for disabled people to live in the community than voting yes will”. We certainly do not agree with this statement. By enshrining in the constitution that disabled people are to be cared for in the home [and by implication, nowhere else] it will cement ‘care in the family’ as a right order and it will never offer disabled people choices and independent living. We will not be party to that, nor will we be party to continuing a human rights violation?
The other wording we object to is the phrase: “[that the provision of care by families] gives to Society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved”. There are serious issues here. This posits the family carers as helping the State, when ‘caring for’ disabled, sick, or older people. We are, by implication, seen as burdens on the state and we apparently seriously affect ‘the common good’. This portrays us as fairly useless individuals which is extremely offensive.
Furthermore, the placing of family members as ‘carers’ distorts family relationships and interrupts the growing separation that all need to do. So many disabled and older people want and need independent living, which will be denied by 42B.
We feel too much is asked of families with very little support from the state. We do not believe that the wording that the Sate will ‘strive to support’ families who are caring for their loved ones will be any better than the previous word, ‘endeavour to support families’.
To ‘strive’ does not mean to provide, which means, through this article 42B, the state aims to remove itself from any responsibility to support disabled people, old people, and families and their wishes to live; with whom they wish to live, to be supported by whom they wish to be supported by, to live their lives fully and completely as all others do, independently with the necessary state supports to do so.
This is why we will vote no for 42B. We will not be complicit in a yes vote for 42B that only hears and considers the views of the carer, we will not put in place an article in the Constitution which denied us any say at all, in the wording.
We live by the motto “nothing about us without us”.
We oppose 42B for good cogent reasons based on equality and human rights. Disabled, sick, and older people for too long have been subjected to ‘patronising politics’ (care model) we will only accept an inclusive human rights model.
Margaret Kennedy, Greystones
Wording leaves carers on their own
As the referenda on family and care approach, more and more carers are becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of clarity around the care amendment.
The wording runs contrary to the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.
Article 42B reads: “The State recognises that the provision of care, by members of a family to one another by reason of the bonds that exist among them, gives to Society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved, and shall strive to support such provision.”
Since when did the state strive to support carers or those whom we care for? People with disabilities and carers are being totally sidelined by the people and organisations pushing for a yes vote.
Many carers, myself included are voting yes to the family amendment but no to the care amendment. We are being vilified online and abandoned by people who we thought would care. We are progressive people but we cannot accept this wording as it takes the onus off the state completely and leaves us on our own caring 24/7 until the day we die.
It’s unfair on the people we care for who may be able to live independently with support and it’s unfair on families and siblings.
I want to be able to care for my son until I’m gone but I hope he goes before me as there is nothing here for him. No support. Imagine that feeling?
However, in the meantime what if I get sick? What if I can’t care for him anymore? As has happened to families the length and breadth of Ireland over the years.
Ireland has a history of shameful neglect of the most vulnerable in our society. Let’s for once do the right thing by all people with disabilities and carers. We need concrete support.
Aisling McNiffe, Ardclough, Co Kildare
Nobody scrutinised for hospital overrun
With regard to the ongoing RTÉ debacle, I find that I am nowhere near the level of exasperation as the drip feed of revelations pertaining to our public broadcaster should merit.
With regard to the massive overrun on the National Children’s Hospital, from an initial estimate of €650m to a now forecasted €2.2bn, nobody has been subjected to anything like the level of public scrutiny as has RTÉ management.
The performance of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in particular, leaves much to be desired in terms of the egocentric posturing of some committee members who still don’t seem to have judiciously absorbed the lessons from the judgment against the committee with regard to proceedings brought by former Rehab chief executive Angela Kerins in 2016.
The more than obvious competition between PAC and the Media Committee is very disrespectful of witnesses who have to appear before both but for no added value in terms of the overall investigation into RTÉ.
Finally, Media Minister Catherine Martin’s recent public censuring of Siún Ní Raghallaigh has confirmed my frustration with politicians cynically using RTÉ as football to be self-servingly kicked in whatever direction, albeit that some purposeful kicking is indeed merited.
Michael Gannon, St Thomas Sq, Kilkenny City
Theatricalities of shenanigans at RTÉ
The GUBU-esque melting pot of relentless RTÉ shenanigans could well be turned into a profitable theatrical enterprise — not so much Toy Show The Musical as ‘Coy Show the Bemuse-us-all’.
Given the interminable odyssey in search of full and open disclosure about this, that and t’ other, the varied cluster of playmakers could surely conjure a surreal masterpiece set in any century of one’s choosing.
Interrogation deadlock, surreptitious machination, and memory lapse could provide core themes, creatively enhanced with mystery accounts, inept ‘Ministers of Truth’, and Del Boy antics galore.
The show would likely be a perennial, in ever-changing modulation and revision, providing episode after episode apace. A sort of internal combustion engine of dramatic flux fanned by an external chorus of nay-sayers and doubters. Critics and commentators will revel and rejoice for the free ride that keeps on giving — free at a big price.
Jim Cosgrove, Lismore, Co Waterford
