‘Still a long way to go’ for wheelchair users
Make Way Day
A local wheelchair user decided to make her point at this year’s Make Way Day on Friday by staying away. She had supported the event in previous years and, despairing at not seeing progress in the streets of Mullingar becoming more user friendly for people in wheelchairs and on crutches, she sent word that she would no longer offer support.
That was just one element of the event on Friday, which began at the council buildings and continued around the town as groups of people with limited mobility pointed out to council officials and local gardaí the shortcomings as they saw them.
Speaking before the tour of the town, Mark Ahern, a Westmeath PPN resource worker, who is also involved with the charity Independent People with Disabilities, told the Westmeath Examiner what it is like for a wheelchair user in Mullingar.
“It has improved over the years but there are still major problems,” said Mark. “Unfortunately, a lot of the premises still have steps in to them, which can be socially excluding. The ramps have improved a lot, but still there’s room for more improvements. There are one or two bad footpaths in places, which can cut off whole sections of the town.
“Sometimes only minor things would change the amount of the town you can easily access.”
Mark finds that a lot of pubs have one or two steps at entrances, and the nightclubs are often up steps. “And, if you’re looking for jobs, solicitors, accountancy firms, a lot of them are upstairs. Although a lot has improved, there’s still a long way to go.”
Is there anything in particular he would urge people to do? “I would just ask people to be considerate and to make sure that they don’t block the footpaths, and if they own a premises, to think about whether there’s anything they can do to make it more accessible.”
Another person mentioned a particular problem on Dominick Street, where there is a space alongside the blue badge parking spot near the taxi rank. The space can accommodate a car, but it is not a parking space, because when a vehicle is present there, a wheelchair or crutch user does not have enough room to exit or enter their own vehicle, parked alongside it.
Make Way Day is a campaign that brings the disability and wider community together to consider the needs of people with disabilities in public spaces and looking at what all of us can do immediately to help our fellow citizens get from A to B, a basic right.
Westmeath County Council and partner organisations in Westmeath Disability Working Group work with DFI to support Make Way Day across the county. This year the areas targeted were Mullingar, Athlone, Delvin and Moate.