US pioneer confident Irish project will be as successful as his own

Assistance from the Cystic Fibrosis Association and the Dublin Business Innovation Centre has been crucial to the development of DisNet Ireland, but the initiative would not have been possible without several external and quite fortuitous factors.

One was the announcement last year by the Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, of a new scheme to support employment initiatives for people with disabilities. The other was the rapid development, since Mr Macnaughton's illness was diagnosed, of the Internet.

Yet neither would have been of much use without the expertise in telecommunications that Mr Macnaughton had built up through his own company, ABM & Associates, and the example set by Mr Frank Ridkosil. Mr Ridkosil was an old friend and business associate of Mr Macnaughton who had also been disabled by health problems.

Based in Trenton, New Jersey, Mr Ridkosil set up DisNet. It has been operational for four years and Mr Macnaughton's own project, DisNet Ireland, is based on Mr Ridkosil's model. The purpose of DisNet, as Mr Ridkosil explains on the organisation's website, is to "link capable people with disabilities with meaningful employment they can do from home".

It has been a slow process, but over the past four years DisNet in the US has developed an expertise in website design and maintenance. One of its main contracts is for dentists. If you have a toothache anywhere in the US you can access the site, locate the nearest dentist, including his, or her scale of charges, and make an appointment.

Mr Ridkosil is confident that Macnaughton's project will be as successful as his own and that it will have a shorter lift-off time. "I was six years disabled," he says. "Before that I had my own company. I was proud and stupid. I didn't ask anyone for help. I didn't know how to ask."

He is critical of the approach of the health professions in their attitude to disability. "You go to a doctor. He gives you his diagnosis and that's it." Mr Ridkosil says it was only when he had come to terms with his disability and "realised I wasn't going to die for quite a long time that I decided I better do something".

People in a similar situation can now be referred to DisNet and the service is so busy that it does not take referrals from outside New Jersey. Building a data base that matches people with employment takes time, Mr Ridkosil says. It is also more difficult than an ordinary jobs register. "You have to get three or four people on a project because you are not sure otherwise that you can get it in on time. It is more difficult, but also more rewarding."

While the work of DisNet is primarily designing web-sites, he says: "We get all sorts of people. We don't reject anybody. We are not a charity organisation, we don't have the funds. We do not advertise we are disabled, we find it better to do the job. The customer couldn't care less whether we are disabled or not."

In fact advertising a disability can be a handicap in itself. "If you are disabled, it's quite difficult to find jobs," Mr Ridkosil says. "If nobody knows you are disabled you get the job."

For further information on DisNet Ireland's aims, objectives and timescales contact Aalfred Macnaughton at 01/288 3531; e-mail - disnetirl@iol.e