9th July 2003
This is the season when I get out and about helping tourists. There are more than a dozen hotels within walking distance of our house. I have taken Bord Fáilte's exhortation that we should be welcoming to our visitors very much to heart.
Anyone standing peering at a map must be swooped on at once and given directions. Stand outside a restaurant gazing at the menu and I'm there beside you too. Having given a really good report on Roly's in Ballsbridge to a couple who were looking at the menu there I asked where they came from. "Ranelagh," was the reply, which is about two miles away. Oh well, I suppose we should help our neighbours as well as strangers.
The Special Olympics were a God-send to me as you can imagine. Not only were many of these involved tourists but they wore labels so I could spot them long distance. Family, volunteers, media and above all the athletes all had their own labels and even identifying tee shirts - what more could I want?
The first group I spotted were what proved to be the Turkish power lifters. They were so nice to me. They had obviously been told to be kind to the Irish no matter how strange their behaviour so they let me tag along as we set off down to the R.D.S. where their competition was taking place. Their trainer spoke English, a big help in view of my weak Turkish, so I could burble on about the times I'd been in Istanbul, Kushidashi, Pamoucle, Ephesis and other tourist destinations. It must have been such a relief to them when they got rid of me at the door which said "Athletes Only". The athletes probably told the trainer to tell people like me to get lost as it ruined their concentration.
Well they had to suffer me in the gymnastics and the bocce and the table tennis before exhausted with enthusiasm I decided to go home. Fergus Finlay one of the Special Olympics organisers was right - there has to be a legacy from these games.
I'm getting a bit concerned however about what this legacy may be. The last Disability Bill produced before the last General Election was much criticised because it was not rights based. It was withdrawn and Mary Wallace who had charge of it lost her junior Ministry after the election. Despite the assurances given by Tim O'Malley, Minister for State at the Department of Health with responsibility for disability issues on Prime Time recently that the next Bill will be rights based I'm a bit doubtful that it will.
There are plenty of straws in the wind to signify that any new Bill will not be rights based either. Writing in "Insight" June 2003 Michael McDowell T.D., Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform says, and I quote from his article,
"It seems to me that personal responsibility is something we have surrendered to a view of the world that implies the individual is always owed a duty by someone else. I see in this development grave consequences for the future development of our society. Because inherent in such a societal make-up is, in my view, an absence of initiative and enterprise, a diminution of the "can do" self-reliant spirit, that is characterised by persons taking responsibility, rather than expecting there is something owed them."
This was the prelude to an article which said that in the Ministers’ opinion the Courts should not be able to adjudicate on social or economic rights. He has made this plain many times recently and the legislation he is bringing before the Oireachtas is consistent.
I fell foul of the Minister's views when I put down amendments to the European Convention Bill in Seanad Eireann. I suggested there was few remedies for those whose rights had been abused except a possible ex gratia payment by the Government. This I said was in breach of the Convention of Human Rights because it insisted remedies which should not be discretionary and that all infringements of a person's rights should have a proper remedy. Brian Lenihan, Minister for State at the Department of Justice explained that our legislation would not give the Court any opportunity to direct a remedy for the wrong. It would be, as Minister McDowell's article in "Insight" says, up to parliament to decide whether or not to bring in a remedy.
Fergus Finlay suggested that an Ombudsman for People with Disabilities might be appointed and Minister McDowell seems to feel this is a possibility. But would this Ombudsman have teeth? And how long before he or she is appointed? It is more than five years since the legislation to appoint a Children's Ombudsman was enacted but still no sign of one. A Commission has been suggested too. How much better to have put one or the other in place before bringing in the European Convention Bill which will prevent people vindicating their rights before the Courts.
So my dear friends of the Special Olympics from Ireland while you certainly had what Minister McDowell calls "can do" you may be waiting for rights here I fear. One of those competing said on television "Love me for what I am and not for what you may have wanted me to be". Love is not enough. Rights are needed and Parliament will be too slow in vindicating them I fear.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
