Edition 16
“THE PROBLEM IN IRELAND IS THAT WE HAVE ACCESSIBLE BUSES, IT’S JUST WE DON’T HAVE ACCESSIBLE BUS STOPS” By Sorcha Rose McGroarty
Matthew Sharkey is a 21 year old university student studying Multimedia in DCU, and is currently active in University life. He attends social events weekly and works hard to maintain his grades, hangs out with friends and works on multimedia projects outside of his studies. Sharkey is also one of the hundreds of people in Ireland living day to day with a physical disability. Matthew has Duchenne
Muscular Dystrophy, a disability that leaves him in a wheelchair requiring aid to complete tasks such as eating, drinking and putting himself to bed.
Despite the struggles he faces day to day, he works hard everyday to be active in his community, volunteering in multiple university society positions while also being an advocate for the disabled. Unfortunately for Matthew he struggles to get to class due to the inaccessibility in public transport. For able bodied students travelling
the same route as Matthew from Dorogheda to DCU it’s as simple as taking the Bus Eireann 101 or 101X to Whitehall, a bus stop a 10 minute walk from campus. However in Matthews case the only accessible bus stops on this route are the one in the Drogheda bus station and the final stop, in Bus Aras. “The problem in Ireland is that we have accessible buses, it’s just we don’t have accessible bus stops.” The issues lies in the width
of the bus stops themselves, while the buses have ramps to allow a wheelchair user to board the bus, the bus stops themselves are not wide enough for a wheelchair to use the ramp. “The only bus that I can get on that goes near Dublin from where I live is the 103X which goes from a local village called Duleek.”
For Matthew to be able to avail of public transport to go to college, it would mean getting the 103X from Duleek and taking it to the
BusAras bus stop or getting a train to Connolly station, and then getting a Dublin bus to DCU.
“A lot of the times it’s when they’re building the bus stop they build it on a certain part of the footpath, and it isn’t wide enough for a ramp to go down, but instead of just widening the footpath they just don’t put the route online as accessible.” The route from Drogheda to Whitehall takes an hour and ten minutes however Matthew says for him to
use a wheelchair accessible route to get to college it could take upwards of two hours, time he simply does not have due to his condition. The issue lies further rooted in issues with the ramps on buses and the frequency they break down. “And then multiple times a bus ramp wont work, a bus lift wont work and then you’re stuck and you have to figure out something else.” According to Matthew this is a frequent issue for
Continued on page 2