From Charity to Rights: the writer in distress in September 2005

To: <ehobbs@indigo.ie>

Subject: Paper by Prof Quinn ‘From Charity to Rights’ and attitude of what I refer to as the ‘Ignorant Educated’

Date: Sunday, September 04, 2005 5:28 PM

5th September 2005

Eddie Hobbs

Question for you. I recognise your tick box only too well, it is about langauge descriptions and areas related to finance concerning work related funds and wealth management. I can understand this but I am one of the category that are out in Limbo. I say Limbo because I am the in-between, I used to work, I used to participate and then it stopped one today when I was 32.

What about the Disabilities Bill that lingers as a carrot to be used by FF at the next election? A Prof. Quinn wrote an excellent paper several years ago ‘From Charity to Rights’. Foolishly, having lived outside Ireland for a number of years and having been ill, I naively wrote in detail to him, to receive no response. This is not the English way but then I suppose they left the South in 1921 en masse……..

Presently I am greatly enjoying Nick Leeson’s with Ivan Tyrrell book [Back From the Brink, coping with stress’). I experienced the Corporate Finance days of London – ‘Book my flight Tuesday scenario because Concord goes Tuesday and returns Friday….Every Friday was about Magnums of Champers and the odd policeman incident to keep the men on their ‘macho image platform’. All fun and high power. Many interesting clients and ideas!

Eddie. Ireland is full of committees, research, and ongoing research. The NDA (National Disabilities Authority) is across the road from me. My personal experience is that without an advocate and when you are a person with disabilities as result of an accident in later life, you are the outsider looking in and they just don’t seem to be able to offer you the advice or assistance you need. I have gone to the NDA and other so called service providers several times and written many emails but I seem to keep missing what they provide for people mid life who end up having to face many house moves, divorce, the Church providing an annulment to my former husband without my sanction (the Church had a letter from my psychiatrist to say ‘Halt’ but to them I was a shattered person who deserved no respect. I am doing well now when you consider my husband left me in a psychiatric hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe. I returned to Ireland and I fumble as a bipolar with anxiety. This does not take account of my horse fall; unconsciousness; fractured skull, 100% deaf right ear and laterally discovered considerable damage to my right.

All I tried to do re. Professor Quinn and others related to Disabilities was to provide them with the social capital of my experience. The word Denial and a book by S. Cohen comforted me in their ‘educated ignorance’ which I now refer to.

I don’t know if you ever watched Bewitched in the 1960’s. I loved it as a child but I sure did not think I would end up like the part played by Zaza Gabor (you see post brain injury and with medications thrown in, my neuro circuits are haywire so I appear totally dotty and as I tire easily, I stagger).

Point…..Simple. I support totally the requirement for an Assessor of Needs for people with Disabilities. Can we stop the meetings (based on the fact that some people are excluded from attending and have valid input) and can we just demand ‘Rights for people with disabilities’ and that the Rights can be enforced by the Courts and no less. Protection is vital. I can vouch that unnecessary stress hampers the life of a person like me.

I need a person to help me manage my affairs…..similar to what you do on the TV with people. I used to deal currency now I can’t guage the value of anything. I just work on the basis of spending as little as I can, that there will be enough in my estate to pay the balance. You see I have a house rented out (My divorce solicitor recommended an agency to wholly manage my property in Castleknock); in the midst of being very ill two years ago, they totally left me dry…of money; of tenants; and just put the keys through my letter box…..It was such a nightmare for me. I had nobody to help me. Anything I do goes wrong. From Church, to entering Trinity as a student with disabilities; to the Divorce courts (all they did is provide me with the capital I brought into the marriage in 1983 i.e the house in Castleknock and the capital provided by mother to me in shares when I had the accident albeit Joint Names)…..Only for medications, the answer is alcohol.

I live in an apartment in Wellington House. I managed to retrieve my third share in the marriage settlement. Again the Courts were loaded against me. I held same with my brother and mother, one third equally and tenants in common. Post divorce my borther sold out and my mother bought in but again there was no level playing field for me.

This now reverberates with a situation in Wellington House. The committee and management company have decided that I am a non person. I am not entitled to correspondence. Who is writing the rules in Irish society now? I can’t work. I write a little ‘social capital’ plus I have invalidity from the UK and some rent. I just can’t work the way ‘work’ expects anymore. However, I have unusual experience.

I have strong reason to believe that the work carried out on the roof of this building on Wellington Road is highly questionable. I have written to the management agents on several occasions to report the blatant inconsistencies in the work carried out to the roof; we had a cherry picker on site for nearly two months. I asked for impartial advice from a Consulting Engineer. He recommended a roofing contractor who gained access to the roof and confirmed what we suspected. We provided copies of estimate. It confirms the apathy in this country. All I received in response was the judgment that my dog could not remain with me.

We need Rights for People with Disabilities. We need proper Enforcement, Accountability and Transparency.

Why did we lose John Fingleton from the Competition Authority? Where is the efficient, effective regulatory systems to curb greed?

Well done to the work of the Tribunals but one point. Are people in business so linked to their memory, arrogance and mobile that the concept of the written contract; retain by file method jettisoned. I ask, at what cost?

I have several files of non answered queries particularly from Govt bureaucratic services. We are all the people of the Island of Ireland, salaries paid ought not be the denominator of recognition. John Hume speaks of ‘Diversity in Unity’ – let it be so.

Regards

Michelle Clarke

Amnesty 2001 – Mental Illness the Neglected Quarter

‘Amnesty is a worldwide voluntary activist movement working with human rights. It is independent of any government, political persuasion or religious creed……

Amnesty’s vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other International Human Rights Standards’

‘One in four people in the world will be affected by mental or neurological disorders at some point in their lives.

Around 450 million people currently suffer from such conditions, placing mental health disorders among the leading causes of ill-health and disability worldwide. Treatments are available, but nearly two-thirds of people with a known mental disorder never seek help from a health professional. Stigma discrimination and neglect prevent care and treatment from reaching people with Mental Disorder….