Madam, - It is only a matter of weeks until our country hosts the Special Olympic games. Host towns have been suitably signposted, and celebrities as well as thousands of ordinary people have rallied to show their support.
I was very disappointed, therefore, to discover that Dublin Airport has not yet repented of its ways when it comes to providing a thoroughly third-class travelling experience for disabled visitors to Ireland.
My brother, a burly former rugby player, is now confined to a wheelchair. He travelled recently with Ryanair from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Dublin, and was treated very well by this company's staff.
But a striking contrast emerged when it came to the responses of the respective airports in coping with boarding and disembarking from the aircraft. In Newcastle a mobile lift was taken to the aircraft, and he was wheeled directly from the lift to his seat with dignity.
In Dublin, however, two slightly-built young men were charged with the difficult task of carrying him, wrapped and trussed in a restraining jacket, wheelchair and all, down the narrow stairs to the tarmac.
This required backbreaking exertion for the carriers; for my brother, it caused embarrassment, and a not unrealistic fear of being dropped.
The return journey highlighted a further contrast. In Dublin he was physically hauled aboard; in Newcastle a simple electronic belt mechanism was applied to the stairs to lower him and his chair to solid ground.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne is a small, provincial airport in the UK, yet it can apparently afford to provide the technology to cope with the needs of disabled passengers, while our nation's capital airport apparently cannot.
With thousands of athletes with disabilities arriving on our shores in a few weeks, can Aer Rianta publicly assure us that we won't be shamed by the inadequacy of our airport's ability to cope with their needs? No matter how many signs are put up and how many welcoming functions are arranged, I fear many of our visitors will return home with the impression that this country's response to disability is still woefully inadequate and lags far behind the norm in other developed nations.
If my brother's experience at Dublin airport recently is anything to go by, such an impression would merely reflect a shameful reality. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN CORCORAN,
Listowel,
Co Kerry.