What better way to demonstrate the pitfalls of life with a disability thanasking able-bodied people to take your place for a day? Lorna Sigginsreports.
Take one actor, one politician and one radio presenter. Strip them of a physical ability and put them in front of a camera for a day. The result? One thought-provoking and sometimes humorous documentary - and three wiser heads.
"White . . . she was pure white," is how Grainne Archer of the Centre for Independent Living in Galway describes Margaret Cox, a Fianna Fáil senator, after her experience. Cox had agreed to be blindfolded for the making of A Day In A Life, a documentary it commissioned for a conference on disability held in the city this month.
Appearing with her were Ollie Turner, a sports presenter with Galway Bay FM, and the actor and writer Little John Nee, whose latest work, Salt O' The Earth, was staged at Galway Arts Festival in July. Turner, all six feet of him, had agreed to take to a wheelchair; Nee said he would surrender his hearing.
All three were briefly trained by the Centre for Independent Living, the National Association for Deaf People and the National Council for the Blind of Ireland before setting out on their travels. And the travels were brief enough, given the demands of fulfilling some basic tasks.
"I'm embarrassed to say that I have difficulty communicating with people who are hearing-impaired, or deaf, and I'm embarrassed about how little knowledge I have about the subject," Nee explained hesitantly to Kathy Heffernan of the deaf association through Evelyn Conroy, a sign-language interpreter, before he left to try to do a few messages and order a pint.
Cox's challenge was to navigate Eyre Square, in the city centre, starting with a zebra crossing. Even with a guide's reassurance that the cars had stopped, it was "like taking a step into the complete unknown", she observed as she crossed the street. She lost all sense of direction and had difficulty identifying her coins when buying sweets in a shop. Taking a lift equipped with a Braille button and a speaker was a little easier, but using a cash machine was almost impossible.
"Like trying to ski uphill" was how an exhausted Turner described negotiating a ramp in a shopping centre; he also had to ask for help when getting out of a van and finding his way onto the pavement.
Heavy doors and stairs made a cafe on Shop Street a no-go area, and the cash-machine experience was, in a word, disastrous. Try as he might, Turner could neither see the screen nor insert his card from his wheelchair.
"Listen with your eyes and talk with your hands" was the advice to Nee as Heffernan explained how people often freeze when dealing with deaf people. "Eye contact is very important," she stressed. Speaking with clear lip patterns helps, but, she pointed out, if everyone learned a little sign language it would help so much more.
Galway City Council has signed up to the 1995 Barcelona Declaration, aimed at eradicating barriers for people with disabilities and ensuring cities promote equal opportunities and design services that can be used by everyone.
The Centre for Independent Living's documentary highlights the daily reality for the more than 10 per cent of people with some form of physical impairment: Galway, like most Irish cities, has much work ahead to fulfil the declaration's aims.
The council supported the hosting of the conference, as did Galway City Partnership, the development board, the city's community forum and the Western Health Board. John Tierney, the city manager, spoke of his authority's action plan for this year. It includes training staff on disability awareness and sign language, as well as commissioning an accessibility audit of public buildings.
There are also plans for a pilot "lifetime" adaptable housing scheme in Knocknacarra, on the city's west side, and a housing scheme with universal-access principles in Merlin Park, to the east.
The controversial design for redeveloping Eyre Square has also been "disability-proofed", he said.
During a subsequent debate on the forthcoming Disability Bill, he and fellow policy moulder Seamus Mannion, of the Western Health Board, were fortunate to escape much of the understandable anger and anxiety about the issue. Galway Alliance of Parents and Carers and other groups fear that the Taoiseach may stop short of his party's commitment to a rights-based Bill.
As the sole politician on the panel, Cox tried to defend the Government's position, and she became upset when she was the focus of a highly personalised attack. Afterwards she told The Irish Times she didn't wish to comment on it, given the otherwise positive spirit of the conference. She did say, however, that she believes the Disability Bill will support a statutory framework of rights, independent assessment and recourse to the courts.
A Day In The Life is available to borrow from the Centre for Independent Living (091-773910 or gcil@eircom.net)