Holidays for Disabled People

I was watching a pre - Valentines morning TV Programme on RTE the other day. They decided to do a feature on Valentines breaks away in hotels around the country.

But they choose very expensive holidays and I was wondering who can afford them. Of course the only people who could afford them are the people who have got the money! So this wasn't a programme about poor people, middle income people, struggling people, having a break - it was a programme about rich people, with money, having a break.

And boy were these breaks palatial – saunas, hot tubs, spa etc,.  all laid on at great expense.

Then I considered where I could afford to go on holiday and of course I couldn't afford that! So I realize straight away and I felt straight away, the divide between the haves and have-nots.

Then something else came to my mind Cuisle, the respite care centre in Roscommon that was closed by the IWA – the Irish wheelchair Association with the backing of Finian McGrath the previous Minister for disability of Ireland. Thank God he is no longer in post.

Cuisle was the only place many disabled people could take a holiday. It catered for those who could not walk, who had severe disabilities and basically needed full-time help to have a bit of craic, and to enjoy themselves.

The place is beautiful. The food was fantastic and the outings and events brilliant - so I am told..  I am also told that many people are missing it badly. They yearn to meet their friends again as it was the only time to get together, the only time to meet up and enjoy the banter that only disability can bring.

Yes, disabled people are a community, they have a shared experience, shared understanding, shared reality, shared life, different but the same - everyone knows what it's like to live in a country hellbent on crushing you.

Everybody knows what is like not to be able to do things freely and have fun. The life of disabled people in Ireland is grim and many live in nursing homes in one room amongst those who have dementia or Alzheimer's and those who might die today or tomorrow.

And they live in these one rooms in a nursing home because the state and the health service are not willing to give them a life worth living and will they ever get out, to have a holiday, the spa, hot tub, the massage or the trips around the country - I doubt it.

Disabled people lives become restricted, become boring, isolating and grim in the environment of Ireland – allegedly an evolved society, a modern country, which in its modernity, allows disabled people to scrimp and Scrabble and beg just to get by.

With many disable people in poverty - 38% of Ireland's disabled people are in poverty. That is a huge number and I would suspect an underestimate because many of them are shored up by families and charities. They daily go, with 'the cap in hand' - they are the modern 'handicapped '. That word we hate, because it means sitting on the sidewalk, the pavement with a 'cap In our hand' begging.

But we beg anyway don't we?  when we ask for the help we need from charities and the do-gooders. We never seem to get the support that gives us equality and a life worth living. it's never 'rights' but always 'charity'. I shout;  "Rights NOT Charity" and "Piss on Pity". I do!

So when I finished watching that TV programme I became aware of the divide between the haves and the have-nots and how the morning TV programmes barely scraped the surface of disability lives and cannot even consider where we might go for a holiday or a break because we simply do not have the money to do so.

Did they not think that poor people will be watching? Did they not think of the distress that poor people would have seeing the privileged and the rich have their Valentines break. In such palatial splendor.

That's why I voted differently in the Irish elections this time round. I am tired of seeing the in equality in disabled people's lives.

I am tired of seeing the suffering, the anguish, the loneliness, the despair, the emptiness of many disabled people's lives simply because this state of Ireland and all the rich people around us do not consider us as part of the community of Irish citizens.

We are not worthy of life, let alone worthy of a decent life. We are expensive-we are seen as depriving the economy! We are a burden to be ignored. We will never get the services and support that we deserve because we are not looked upon as citizens worthy of even living.

Maybe I'm sounding depressed or negative. But it is TV programmes like this that highlight the inequality of Ireland so graphically.

When the IWA, a support organisation for disabled people do not listen to disabled people and deprive them of a holiday away; that they've always loved and enjoyed by closing Cuisle,  without any consultation or any attempt to save it.  Then we know that our charities are not working for us at all.

This is the despondency I feel today when state and charities conspire to support us in a way that is patronising, that excludes us from the discussion and conspires against us, causes harm, pain, hurt, and isolation. Charities, State and HSE with no concept of 'Nothing about us - without us'. with even less care to act upon that slogan. Our declaration of Inclusion.

I long for a holiday centre for disabled people that all disabled people can enjoy and get the break and fun and excitement that everybody else does.

Yes I voted differently in the election this time round but my vote means nothing when we've got two political parties hellbent on preserving the status quo and perpetuating societal misery and inequality.

I do despair I do.