RadioScope: Outside the Box, RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday, December 6th, 8.02pm.
If you are a social animal and you've made it to Tuesday, more than likely you're deep in planning for next weekend.
If you're single and looking for love, you've probably got an action plan. Will it be the cinema, maybe a few pints, or how about a meal or a nightclub afterwards?
Whatever you decide, you'll probably ring a few mates, organise somewhere to meet and then it's down to the serious business of what to wear. Fancy a haircut, maybe even a new pair of jeans?
Showered, groomed, a few bob in your pocket and the taxi booked, you're on your way, sometimes all in the pursuit of the man or woman of your dreams. Good plan? Well, maybe not.
For an adult with learning difficulties or special needs, it's never that simple. Circumnavigating personal difficulties, parental or carer disapproval, and pub or nightclub door-personnel with Neanderthal entrance policies can all be demoralising, and that's before you get to the nitty-gritty of attraction and chat-up.
There's also the small difficulty of standing room only and long-legged furnishings. For instance, have you noticed how many people nowadays stand in bars instead of sitting? Not exactly wheelchair friendly is it? And why do people who design pubs insist on high stools? Take a note - be more considerate to the blokes with the wheels.
And so it begins. Having overcome the initial hurdles, you're on the dance floor or at the bar and surrounded like everybody else by a plethora of possible partners. With a bit of luck and a little charm you might meet someone who's new, interesting or just downright sexy. However, while some adults with disabilities or learning difficulties can't wait to find boyfriends or girlfriends, over-protective parents often enforce curfews.
Some parents and carers even see this scenario as their worst nightmare hampering young adults from finding the time and space to make their own sexual choices, form relationships and, of course, make the inevitable mistakes.
It's also probably time to reconsider the law. For example, if you happen to finally overcome all the everyday prejudices and meet a loving partner, you still face the whole framework of the 1993 Criminal Law Sexual Offences Act and the key line that states "a person who has or attempts to have sexual intercourse with a person who is mentally impaired shall be guilty of an offence" - which technically prohibits two people with learning difficulties from having a sexual relationship.
Tonight, RTÉ's Outside the Box, presented and produced by Olan McGowan, tackles such pertinent issues with sensitivity. The programme features Rita Nugent and Tony Barry, both with special needs, Gert Job, a sex-educator with Irish Sex Education Network, and Edel Browne and Angela O'Riordan, family support workers with The Irish Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus.