Sir, - CIE's decision to purchase 150 wheelchair inaccessible buses is shameful, but it is hardly surprising for an organisation whose attention to the needs of disabled people is at best minuscule and at worst non-existent.
The purchase of these wheelchair-inaccessible double-decker buses is justified by CIE on two grounds. Firstly, it claims that wheelchair-accessible doubledecker buses are not commercially available. Secondly, it argues that inaccessible double-deckers are needed to meet extra capacity. The logic defies reason.
As every player in the market economy knows (of course, CIE is exempt from this category), demand will always meet supply. The commercial unavailability of accessible double-decker buses is a result of insufficient demand. If CIE placed an order for the vehicles, demand would increase and so, consequently, would supply, thus solving the problem of commercial unavailability. Doubtless CIE would argue that the number of disabled customers is not sufficient to justify the purchase of more expensive buses (our State transport authority does avail of cost benefit analysis when it so pleases). Here again the argument is spurious.
Firstly, the lack of disabled CIE customers does not mean that there aren't significant numbers of potential disabled customers out there. The appalling standard of transport facilities for mobile impaired individuals is keeping such people away. If it serves nothing else, our transport system serves to exclude. Disabled people don't demand our sympathy; why should we sympathetically deny them their rights?
Secondly, the issue of accessible buses is not the sole preserve of the disabled, people with buggies and prams and older people are all affected by CIE's decision. In the future, our ageing population will require greater accessibility. CIE should indulge in a bit of forward thinking; there's no point being issued with a bus pass if you can't use the bus.
CIE claims that the 150 inaccessible double-deckers are needed for excess capacity. This is a fair point. But surely the emphasis should be on quality, not quantity. As a frequent traveller with CIE, I am disgusted to think that wheelchair users are forced to crawl onto buses. Commercial enterprises in the private sector would be boycotted for subjecting their customers to such degradation. Can you imagine the uproar if supermarkets made disabled people crawl along their aisles?
CIE's privileged market position should not allow it to discriminate against sections of society. If anything, it should enable them to address the varying needs of different groups. - Yours, etc., Carmel Crimmins,
Raheny, Dublin 5.