This article is from page 23 of the 2005-08-23 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 23 JPG
MEMBERS of the Ennis based Centre for Inde- pendent Living (CIL) have echoed a statement made this week by the People With Disability’s in Ireland (PWDI), that greater efforts should be made to make public transport more accessible.
The call comes as members of the CIL prepare to travel to Strasbourg in September as part of European-wide initiative to raise the issue of dis- ability with the EU.
The ‘Strasbourg Freedom Drive 2005’ will bring together 600 people from around Europe who will stage a major disability rights rally at the European Parliament in Strasbourg from September 5-8. 58 people will travel from Ire- land, with six people representing Clare.
According to Thomas Connole, who will lead the Clare delegation in Strasbourg, more needs to be done to make the transport service more accessible for people with disabilities.
“We were trying to lobby for a low floor bus for the use of people with disabilities between Ennis and Limerick but Bus Eireann kept saying there was engineering difficulties with the road. The trains are also very inaccessible to people with disabilities especially if you are in a wheelchair,” said Thomas on Friday.
Reports carried out by the National Disability Authority (NDA) showed that there is an extra
burden placed on a person living with disability, because of the extra costs associated with dis- ability.
This week the PW DI recommended that a pay- ment be made to disabled people to cover rising AUS COIS
“There is also talk now that taxi drivers are go- ing to introduce a fuel surcharge and the mobil- ity allowance I get at the moment won’t cover that,” explains Thomas.
Accessible transport is just one issue that the group hopes to highlight in Strasbourg.
The CIL are part of a larger European-wide movement known as the European Network of Independent Living (ENIL), who have three key demands that they would like to see met at Stras- bourg.
These include; stopping the drift towards insti- tutionalisation, the provision of a European-wide funding for personal assistance and to pass a res- olution stating that 5% of Overseas Development Aid be given to community development projects for disabled people in developing countries.
According to Dermot Hayes of the CIL, the issue of personal assistance remains hugely im- portant in Clare.
“At the moment there are approximately 72 people waiting for personal assistance that we know of, and we view this as a human rights is-
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