The local branch of the Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA) hosted a meeting yesterday to tell local election candidates just how difficult life can be in Drogheda when confined to a wheelchair, they presented the candidates with a comprehensive list of issues which they want addressed.
There are 30,739 people living with a disability in County Louth, that’s 23% of the population but, almost 65 years after Drogheda man Oliver Murphy established the Irish Wheelchair Association, we still have a long way to go before we can call ourselves an inclusive and accessible society.
None of these issues are new, it’s just that they haven’t been attended to. Things like footpaths that are not accessible, misuse of disabled parking bays, cars parking on footpaths, disabled parking bays with no dipped footpath, the fact that there is only on wheelchair accessible toilet in Drogheda and no Changing Places facility whatsoever Drogheda town centre.
Public transport in and around Drogheda and County Louth also came in for criticism with the lack of accessible buses mentioned by several IWA members.
One member said that if they want to travel by train from Drogheda to Dublin, especially if they are travelling in a group, they must ring the train station in advance to ensure that a ramp is available for them to enter the train.
She recalled one group visit to Dublin when, on their way home from Dublin there was no ramp available even though they had organised in advance.
“This is not good enough and is excluding wheelchair users from the community” she said. “People with disabilities like to be spontaneous and go on a train in the spur of the moment. Why can’t we be like everybody else?”
Another example of the effect of inaccessible transport is that the Drogheda IWA group is often invited to attend events organised by their colleagues in the Dundalk branch of IWA but, because there are no wheelchair accessible buses on the route they cannot attend and not all of them drive.
Other areas that are of great concern to wheelchair users are as basic as the lack of wheelchair liveable homes. They asked that in future all housing be built to universal design standards making them liveable for all.
The candidates that turned up for the briefing included Ejiro O’Hare Stratton, Michael O’Dowd, Emma Cutlip, Marian Agrios, Shona McManus and Peter James Nugent all of whom spoke about how they would strive to improve the lives of wheelchair users in Drogheda.
For more on the campaigning work of the IWA see: https://www.iwa.ie/get-involved/advocacy-campaigns/our-campaigns/
