Sir, – Sinn Féin TD Jonathan O’Brien recently requested a two-minute silence in the Dáil to highlight the experiences of deaf children who are without a second bilateral cochlear implant.
I have no doubt about Deputy O’Brien’s genuine concern for these children but I must question the usefulness of such an exercise. I do not to intend to argue in great detail about the pros and cons of bilateral cochlear implantation for young deaf children, other than to highlight that the research is arguably inconclusive. Indeed, the UK health policy group, NICE, calls for more research into this issue. A recent lecture by an academic in Trinity College affirmed that one third of deaf children received no benefit from cochlear implantation.
Deputy O’Brien’s decision to use “silence” to highlight this issue, is baffling to us in many ways. Silence should be regarded as a virtue, not a vice. To spring the oft-misquoted phrase: “Speech is silvern, silence is golden”. Of course, silence on disturbing issues such as sexual abuse must not be encouraged anytime but what I refer here to is the projection of one’s own imaginings on to how others feel. In this case, it is an image of how these children feel in their world, based on another’s assumptions and projections, and this is a risky business.
To attempt to understand the ontological outlook (the essence of being) of others in a two-minute exercise does not do justice to these children, nor to us as deaf people. Silence is genuinely practised in many cultures and religions and is even celebrated in a number of festivals. Gandhi held a weekly practice of staying silent for a full day to purify his soul and mind. For many of us in the deaf community, the exercise in the Dáil was somewhat amusing, while for others it was insulting. We do not see ourselves as suffering from “silence”. In fact, despite living in this phono-centric society, where sound and hearing are given far greater value than other senses including vision, hindering our ability to participate, many of us go on to achieve much in our lives – things that many would only dream of.
Some of us have residual hearing and are able to use the telephone and enjoy music with hearing aids, while others do not. Finally, cochlear implantation is itself part of a massive bio-medical industry and is regulated chiefly by stock markets. The three main manufacturers have made tens of millions of dollars in profits. Sinn Féin has preached against the evils of big business capitalism in the past, yet the exercise of using “silence” in the Dáil for something that is associated with big business interests is all the more bizarre as a result. – Yours, etc,
Dr JOHN BOSCO CONAMA,
Oldcourt Road,
Dublin 24.