Irish Examiner view: People with a disability must not be ignored by candidates
Sit Disability For Outside Rights Cara Leinster Her Campaigner Boal/collins Sam Out Protest Darmody Photos Better On Disability Picture: Weekly House Funding
While the forthcoming election will undoubtedly focus on the big-ticket items such as housing, the cost of living, and immigration, candidates and parties would do well not to ignore one of the lesser publicised issues — Ireland’s disabled.
With the Economic and Social Research Institute having recently highlighted the fact that 23% of 13-year-olds here are now labelled as having some disability or other, they also point out that the figure was only 6% as recently as 2011/12.
Reasons for this growth include greater awareness of disability and a greater prevalence of certain conditions. No matter the reasons, of greater concern is the lack of access to vital therapies, a lack of therapists, and a dire shortage of general practitioners, especially throughout rural Ireland.
These are problems that are not going to go away as children develop into adults and their acute needs become even more burdensome on themselves and their families.
Ahead of the election, the Disability Federation of Ireland has produced a manifesto for change and are asking all candidates to take note; it is also asking the many affected to bring these matters up when their vote is being asked for.
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As Fergus Finlay points out in his column on Tuesday, the wastefulness of finances down the years here has only worsened a situation that should not be regarded as problematic, but as a wonderful opportunity to right the many wrongs disabled people and their families face.
As a former Labour stalwart, he will have seen the Social Democrats’ proposal for a Department for the Disabled, which brings together the strands — and finances — which are currently distributed between education, social protection and health and oversee a co-ordinated effort to make those with disabilities feel they are being catered for.
This is one of many election issues we will be highlighting in the coming days and weeks and is one that you — the voter — should highlight when candidates ring your doorbell.
The recent report from the Living Planet Index, which indicated that wildlife population numbers around the world are dropping precipitously, have been panned by some researchers as having included data too inconsistent and varied to draw specific conclusions.
But, with one conclusion estimating there has been a reduction of 73% in the average size of monitored wildlife population in the 50 years from 1970 to 2020, the way the globe is trending is undoubtedly a cause for major concern.
This year’s index was based on evidence from 34,836 local populations of some 5,495 species, all of which were vertebrates: Mammals, birds, fish amphibians, and reptiles. It may be that changes in tiny populations of one animal can have an outsize effect on the global count because they are averaged together with larger ones, but the big picture is still startling.
Scientists are already alarmed that species populations are declining at an unprecedented rate and admit that while the scientific evidence might not be fully reliable, it is noteworthy for the trends it is revealing.
There is widespread consensus among the scientific community that our planet is facing a crisis of biodiversity loss that has dangerous implications for humanity.
The drivers behind this loss include habitat loss, hunting, and fishing animals for food and other reasons, climate change, pollution, invasive species, and disease.
That makes the lack of agreement at the UN Biodiversity Conference in Cali, Colombia, last week — aimed at halting the rapid decline of nature by 2030 — all the more concerning. As the earth so obviously careens towards dangerous environmental tipping points, it is sad that not only can we not agree on saving our wildlife, but we also cannot even agree measures which will ultimately protect humanity.
An outbreak of cheese theft has mystified both police and suppliers but is, in actual fact, just a tiny fraction of a global problem in food related crime.
Last month, a heist in London netted roughly 950 truckles of cheese — roughly the weight of four elephants — in what was labelled ‘the grate cheese robbery’ by the tabloids. Twenty-two tonnes of it disappeared without a trace.
It did not come as a surprise in some circles as certain foods — especially items of foreign produce banned in Russia as a response to economic sanctions placed on the country after its invasion of Ukraine — are now commonly linked to theft, counterfeiting, and smuggling. Roughly estimated, these add up to a cost of $30bn-$50bn (€28bn-€47bn) annually, according to the World Trade Organization.
Such theft varies radically, from the logistical high-wire act of hijacking of freight lorries delivering to warehouses, to the simplicity of stealing live lobsters from storage pens across northern Europe. But the targeting of cheese — and in particular, luxury cheese — is something curious, although it too has been around for a while. As long ago as 1998, thieves broke into a storeroom at a family farm in Somerset and stole nine tonnes of cheddar. And, prior to last Christmas, £50,000 (€60,000) of various cheeses went missing when it was stolen from a trailer in a motorway services in the west of England.
In Italy, some €80,000 worth of parmigiano reggiano was nicked in 2016 and at the time authorities in the north of the country estimated that €6.5m of the cheesy delicacy had been stolen in a two-year period.
Britain’s office for national statistics estimated the cost of food and non-alcoholic drinks rose by 25% between January 2022 and January 2024. The cost of cheese went up by a similar amount in the space of just 12 months.
Don’t be surprised then if you find security tags on blocks of cheese in your local supermarket soon. A definite sign of the times.