Conclusiones del Capítulo VI

According to Paraskevopoulou and McKay (2016), the idea of equality from a European perspective has been understood as being fundamental for democracy and the democratic values of ‘liberty, ‘equality’ and ‘fairness’. In order to achieve equality, people must be fair and respect differences in their values and status. Richardson & Fulton (2013, p.6) have claimed that ‘in order to promote equality you must have an understanding of what inclusion is and why it is important in the everyday lives of people with disabilities. In an equal society inclusion means being included and playing a meaningful part in the life of your community and being a valued and respected member of society’. Indeed, this way of thinking has been the very essence and intent of legislation promoting and supporting equality and equality issues for PWID on an international level. From a recent Irish perspective, ‘disability is proscribed for by the 1998 and 2000 Equality Legislation in areas of employment and of services and the National Disability Authority (NDA) was

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established in 1999, its main purpose being to promote the interests of disabled people’

(Forde and Leonard 2013, p.424).

The Employment Equality Acts passed in 1998 were enacted in Ireland to make ‘further the provision for the promotion of equality between employed persons: to make further provision with respect to discrimination in and in connection with employment and vocational training’ (The Employment Equality Act 1998). According to Sargeant (2008, p.82), ‘the most striking feature about these Acts was the inclusion of discrimination, namely age, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion, family status, gender and membership of the travelling community’. The Acts were to legislate so that all people with disabilities could be included in their communities and make valued contribution to society through the process of equal access of opportunities in securing meaningful employment. It is interesting to note however, how the term disability is defined under the terms of the Employment Equality Acts 1998 – 2011.

Disability is defined in Section 2 of the Act as ‘(a) ‘’the total or partial absence of a person’s bodily or mental functions, including the absence of a part of a person’s body, (b) the presence in the body of organisms causing, or likely to cause, chronic disease or illness, (c) the malfunction, malformation or disfigurement of a part of a person’s body, (d) a condition or malfunction which results in a person learning differently from a person without the condition or malfunction, or (e) a condition’’, illness or disease which affects a person’s thought processes, perception of reality, emotions or judgement or which results in disturbed behaviour’.

Definitions of disability have rarely, if ever, been positive and they tend to be influenced by the medical model of disability. Many disability advocates and scholars assert that definitions of disability containing negative wording such as ‘illness’, ‘disease’,

‘disturbed behaviour’, ‘malfunction’, ‘malformation’ and ‘disfigurement’ have impacted negatively on how society come to understand and respond to people with disabilities.

Indeed, legislation containing negative definitions of people with disabilities may actually serve to further misinform the general public about this minority group in turn

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having the opposite effect of what it originally intended to promote and achieve. Thus, the use of negative language and labels may serve to further marginalise PWID from mainstream society as they are perceived to be ‘problem’ or a ‘special’ group of people.

Indeed, Hynes (2013, p.40) claimed that ‘negative labels focus on the problem’ and people who acquire negative labels may be perceived by society as ‘burdens, dependent, threats and vulnerable’.

According to the Chief Executive (CE) of Barnardos, Fergus Finlay, people with disabilities are significantly underrepresented and excluded in the Irish workforce in comparison to their non-disabled counterparts while the Disability Federation (2012) of Ireland recently claimed that just 35% of people with disabilities were at work compared to 73% of the general population. However, many people with disabilities would like to work if the circumstances were right. In turn most people with disabilities, including PWID, experience poverty and exclusion from mainstream society.

Research undertaken by the World Bank and published by a Joint Committee on Human Rights in the UK in 2008 found that ‘people with disabilities were disproportionately represented among the poor in all countries. People with disabilities face a ‘vicious cycle’

of disability and poverty and having a disability makes it more likely you will be poor.

The research affirms the relationship between poverty and disability but suggests that the real ‘vicious cycle’ is of disability, poverty and exclusion. People with disabilities are more likely to find themselves in this vicious circle that most other groups in society’

(Joint Committee on Human Rights 2008, p.186).

It should come as no surprise then that people with disabilities, their advocates, advocacy organisations and families are actively involved in lobbying for and pushing the disability agenda themselves. Employment legislation has not only defined people with disabilities using negative descriptors and affiliations, it has also failed in its attempt to secure meaningful employment for many and a significant number of people with disabilities continue to experience loneliness, poverty, marginalisation and exclusion from society and their communities.

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However, according to Parekh, Pinto and Rioux (2015) a new and significant development is the intervention of people with disabilities themselves in the social construct of disability. This has contributed to a process away from the negative definitions of disability as indicating impairment and abnormal to a positive definition that first and foremost asserts essential humanness, understanding around notions of human rights and community life, of the disabled that they share with all others’.

2.3.2 The Education Act 2000 & Education for Persons with Special