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IRISH RAIL IS set to launch its new accessibility programme on its Dart services this Monday.
It will mean that wheelchair users, or others who require assistance getting to and from the train, will only need to notify the relevant station four hours in advance, rather than the existing 24-hours notice.
As part of the launch, Irish Rail staff and regular users of the accessibility services will take the Dart from Connolly to Howth and then back again.
Monday will also mark the introduction of a new hub system at stations, whereby a number of fully manned rail stations will act as hubs with staff attached to these travelling to other stations to assist customers when necessary.
The issue of the 24-hours notice needed gathered momentum last year after a wheelchair user told RTÉ Radio One’s Liveline that she was forced to wait 15 minutes for Irish Rail employees to help her exit a train.
“When I got to Connolly then, I had to wait 15 minutes for someone to come get me off the Dart,” Saoirse Smith said.
They didn’t know I was on my way. Thank god for these kids that stood in the door and made sure it didn’t close. I just felt really embarrassed. I’m holding up everybody and they can’t go where they want to go, because I’m waiting to get off the Dart.
Last July, a spokesperson for the Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA) told TheJournal.ie that providing at least 24 hours notice is a major issue for its members.
“This is quite a major issue for quite a few of our members, especially people with disabilities living in rural areas because there are many trains and train stations that are unmanned throughout the country,” the spokesperson said.
The mandatory notice is specifically troubling to those who need to travel last-minute, according to the IWA.
It’s a barrier for people if they want to travel spontaneously, or in emergency situations they will be unable to travel because they haven’t provided the local station with 24-hour notice.
At the time, Irish Rail said it was undertaking a full review of the customer experience, including input from the Irish Wheelchair Association and the NCBI.
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We really should, as a nation, stop worrying about what Joan Burton thinks about everything.
You mean iPhone Joan.
‘iPhone Joan’ has a certain ring to it.
Even when she’s right?
I don’t think anyone really cares about what that witch thinks.
She’s on borrowed time atm
Never normally agree with Joanie but she has a point here. Putting pressure on women to delay having children is not empowered them at all. In fact it’s really having the opposite effect . Women are basically being pressured to choose their career over child bearing and family in their twenties and thirties. It’s much harder to have atrain a viable pregnancy from frozen eggs so there is no guarantee that you would be able to get pregnant later on if you wanted to. I imagine better child care and flexible working hours to slow women to return to the work force after giving birth would probably be more useful . Help in finding the balance most women want and need is better than putting pressure on woman to delay starting family for several years.
Something Joan herself could do too while she’s in Government – allow couples to decide how to split up their parental leave. Quite often now, the mother earns more than the father, so it could be very beneficial for the dad to be at home instead.
Allowing the mother to go back to work at the time of her choosing, while still having one parent at home with the child, means that it has minimal impact on her career and its progression (though in theory there should not be any impact to begin with), and it also means that the dad can have time to bond with his child.
Dont care what JoanThe Butcher Bruton makes of anything, she is a waste of space in my opinion
Thought the Labour party were pro abortion … Baby’s do not concern them … When one their TDs spoke about the welfare of ms Y recently she never mentioned the baby … Nutters
I don’t understand why people are getting so pissed off over this. It’s just an additional perk that they provide to their employees, if a woman wishes to use this service, they can. Apple/Facebook aren’t actively encouraging their female employees to use this, I imagine it’s a much more common practice to do in places like Silicon Valley compared to here.
It’s the idea that employees may feel pressured to focus on work rather than family.
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/apple-facebook-pay-female-employees-freeze-eggs/
“But the thing to remember is that companies like Apple and Facebook are simply opening up egg freezing as a possibility. While we wait for the incremental changes to happen that makes it easier for women to make choices in the world freely, it provides more choice. It’s not for everyone. But it’s for some.”
““There’s been an explosion,” in the number of women freezing their eggs for potential insemination later, says Dr Alan Copperman, director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology at Mount Sinai hospital. The number of women opting for egg-freezing has risen fourfold in the last four years, he says. ”
http://time.com/3509930/company-paid-egg-freezing-will-be-the-great-equalizer/
“a 37-year-old marketing executive who worked at both Facebook and Google tells me. “I’m looking to control my career and choices around motherhood on my terms, and a company that would allow me to do so — and provide financial support for those choices — is one I’d willingly return to.””
By offering this service, it is implied that the company would prefer you wait as long as possible-late 30′s on before having children. It’s not a perk, it’s a threat.
First you would have to go through lots of meds and invasive procedures. Then an op to retrieve eggs to be frozen. Later on (when company says it’s ok?) you go for IVF. More meds and an op to implant embryo if you even get that far.
Freezing eggs is most common among women about to undergo intensive cancer treatment that might leave them unable to produce eggs in the future. Not because their boss thought it was a grand idea.
Having IVF is not fun and no guarantee you would even have a child at a later stage.
This is such a backward step for women in the workplace.
I completely agree Carly. IVF is no walk in the park…a very physically invasive procedure that, personally, we had to use as a last resort to have a child. What is rarely mentioned when talking about IVF is that the increased oestrogen injected into a woman’s body can fast forward breast cancer, if a woman is predisposed to the condition. IVF is an amazing medical development but not something to be taken lightly. Facebook etc should be looking at developing facilities & supports to working mothers, rather than ‘encouraging’/ pressuring to delay child rearing.
I can’t imagine it’s for all female employees either. I imagine most would be coporate full time staff with sufficient benefits and not just based on all female employees getting this treatment free.
Are they allowed smartphones?
I agree with Joan on something…I feel so dirty.
Hard boiled..
Yes Tim, or maybe even scrambled like her brain !!!
I hope to God they don’t freeze her eggs… They’d be manky at this stage anyway!!!
The Ultimate Postman, whatever you think of this woman or any woman that is a truly disgusting remark. Can you not express your views without indulging in overt misogynism or comments which criticise woman without reference to looks or fertility?
Sexism and ageism in one post. Wow.
Ahh dry your eyes!!!
Here’s a compromise. Could we get Apple or Facebook to freeze Joan Burton???
It’s really none of her business what I keep in my fridge.
Anyone got a Joanie phone ?
Maybe Joan could dream up a new tax for this. A frozen egg tax.
I don’t care what Joan thinks, I don’t care what anyone else thinks. Isn’t it supposed to be ‘my body, my choice’? #prochoice #noneofyourdamnbusiness
Her and her party are big fans of abortion and see where that got them in the elections
Every time Joan Burton opens her mouth the rest of us get a little stupider. Is there anyone that ISN’T sick of the woman at this point?
Why does everyone have to jump in with responses based on a very binary interpretation of that is on offer.
Nobody is saying “women must” do this if they work for these companies, nobody is saying it removes choice, it is a form of bullying etc.
Some women may decide they want to postpone having children and focus on establishing their career and for theses women this is something they may want to consider – it is a huge cost burden removed.
have your say