Outrage has been expressed following the discrimination of local disability rights campaigner Frank Larkin when a taxi turned him away due to his disability.
Frank and his wife Pauline had been at a hotel to celebrate his mother’s birthday. Getting ready to leave, the couple called a taxi, however when the taxi pulled up it “almost immediately drove off”.
Frank asked the receptionist to make a call to the taxi driver to see what the story was, only for the driver to say that they “weren’t prepared to take” Frank and Pauline home.
Speaking about Friday night, Frank says; “The driver wasn’t prepared to take us. This is not the first time this has happened with this driver and I tried to follow it up previously by kept coming up against brick walls. I certainly won’t be letting it go this time. We ended up getting a taxi home that wasn’t wheelchair accessible so Pauline was unable to bring her mobility scooter home.”
Frank has highlighted that Article 9 of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities states that “People with disabilities have the right to access all aspects of society on an equal basis with others including the physical environment, transportation, information and communications, and other facilities and services provided to the public”.
Commenting on Article 9, Frank says “if Ireland had ratified the UNCRPD (Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) by now this would possibly help us with the discrimination that happened against us last night. Alas it hasn’t happened and anymore delays are not acceptable.”
Tags: