Attitudes harden towards disabled people

GROUPS REPRESENTING people with disabilities have warned that negative attitudes were hardening towards disabled people and there was a danger they would “slip” further away from mainstream society.

They were reacting to findings from a survey published yesterday by the National Disability Authority (NDA) that showed a deterioration in attitudes to people with physical and intellectual disabilities over the past five years.

Among the main findings of the survey were 34 per cent of people with disabilities face restrictions in socialising and 31 per cent face restrictions in employment or job seeking.

It found just over one-third of people believe people with mental health difficulties should have children if they wish and almost one quarter of people (24 per cent) would object if children with mental health problems were in the same class as their child.

Some 21 per cent said they would object if a child with intellectual disability or autism were in class with their child.

“The levels of objection for children with physical disabilities and visual, hearing or speech disabilities being in the same class were relatively low at 8 per cent and 11 per cent respectively,” says the report.

Only 37 per cent agreed adults with intellectual disability or autism should have children if they wish. This is down very significantly from 64 per cent in 2006, the report said. Only 56 per cent agreed people with mental health difficulties had the same right to have sexual relationships as those without disabilities.

Inclusion Ireland, the charity working to support people with intellectual disabilities, said the report should be a “wake-up call to Government, that action must be taken to stop people with an intellectual disability slipping further away from mainstream society”.

Deirdre Carroll, chief executive, said society needed to ask whether it was progressing or regressing in its treatment of people with disabilities.

Were we “going back to the days where children with an intellectual disability didn’t attend their local schools and mix with other children, and adults were pushed into institutions at the edges of communities?” she asked.

Peter McKevitt, chairman of the NDA, said the findings should be a matter of huge concern to “us all”.

“This survey shows that people with disabilities continue to face significant barriers in all areas of their lives, in schools, at work and in their neighbourhood, which precludes them from becoming valued and integrated members of our society.

“We must address and end these barriers which, in many ways, are central to the isolation experienced by people with disabilities, and we must ensure in every way possible, that people with disabilities are seen as highly valued and equal members of Irish society.”