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RollingNews.ie

Vice President of Paralympics Ireland prevented from voting freely

Wheelchair users were yesterday required to call ahead to arrange access at some polling stations.

VOTERS WITH DISABILITIES were prevented from freely accessing some count centres during yesterday’s elections.

For some centres it was requested that those with accessibility issues wishing to take part should call ahead to ensure that they were facilitated.

In one case this resulted in the joint-Vice President of Paralympics Ireland Eimear Breathnach being prevented from freely casting her vote.

Breathnach won a number of major titles for table tennis during her career as a paralympic athlete, competing in the Beijing and London Paralympic games.

Upon arriving at her polling station yesterday, she was was initially unable to enter as she had not called ahead to request wheelchair access.

She later tweeted that she needed her big brother to help her access the polling station via the fire exit, passing the polling station’s bins.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie John Dolan, the campaign director for the Disability Federation of Ireland (DFI), said that the condition about calling ahead to vote means that disabled people are unable to “vote freely like everyone else”.

“On one hand it is good that accommodations are made,” he said.

But we should have gone beyond the point of someone having to say ‘I’ll be showing up at a polling station and will you facilitate me’.

Speaking about wider election issues – specifically the fact that provisions are not made to ensure that the votes of blind people remain anonymous – Dolan said that the Irish voting system had some distance to travel.

“I think what it shows is that even in relation to something that is sacrosanct in a republic, like being able to operate your voting preferences,” he said.

We still can’t ensure that happens for people with disabilities.

Read: Coalition rejected and 6 other things we already know about this election

Also: The votes have been cast and the count is ready to begin – what happens now?

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17 Comments
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    Mute
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    Jul 1st 2017, 2:11 PM

    This is result of letting a cult like group involve into our way of life support by a blind and deaf pc brigade. It to late for change Ireland has little hope and maybe some other countries. The UK is finished it be very hard task to undo what has grown there.

    236
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    Mute John B
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    Jul 1st 2017, 2:17 PM

    @: you mean Christianity?

    33
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    Mute Brendan Cooney
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    Jul 1st 2017, 2:30 PM

    @: are you talking about jehovahs? Mormons?
    Actually they are not that bad once you get to know them
    Admittedly they have some odd customs with blood and marriage and beliefs ;-)

    22
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    Mute Rowe
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    Jul 1st 2017, 2:38 PM

    Returning Islamic State Jihadis popping back to receive their benefits.

    195
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    Mute Rowe
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    Jul 1st 2017, 3:21 PM

    Send them back to their Islamic state and let e SAA, Kurds, Syriacs, Yazidi, Iraqis finish them off….https://au.news.yahoo.com/video/watch/36225430/yazidi-children-held-by-islamic-state-found-in-hospital-basement-in-mosul/#page1

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    Mute Ken Hayden
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    Jul 1st 2017, 2:26 PM

    More Rats leaving the sinking ship that is isis . There’ll be plenty more of this type of arrest in the coming weeks , however Mayor Khan will try and get them housed in Chelsea , in those new 1.8 million pound council houses .

    144
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    Mute Mick Tobin
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    Jul 1st 2017, 3:27 PM

    Don’t be daft. Sadiq Khan’s alright. And the last thing he wants is more terror tearing through the streets of London.

    32
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    Mute Ken Hayden
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    Jul 1st 2017, 3:42 PM

    @Mick Tobin: Don’t be daft ? This is the man who wanted the president of the United States banned because he had put a temporary ban on 6 countries , while the mayor himself when he was a lawyer defended Islamic militants , pushed for Louis Farakhan to be allowed into the country , even though he had called for a genocide of white people , had shared speaking platforms with convicted islamic terrorists , has spoken at muslim meetings where isis banners have been flown , called moderate muslims ”Uncle Toms” and says the Met Police do not have enough funds to follow returned Jihadis , even though he took money and personnel from their resources to set up a unit to chase down people who said things against islam on social media platforms .

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    Mute Mick Tobin
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    Jul 1st 2017, 3:58 PM

    @Ken Hayden: I will look into this, but contexts do matter. The mayor of Rotterdam, also a muslim, has also been accused of sharing the stage with people with radical ideas, but he in fact told them to p*** off elsewhere if they didn’t like it here.

    Khan is right to shun divisions in the city, and my feeling’s been that this has been behind what he’s done, at least recently.

    But sure, it pays to be critical, and I’ve taken note of what you just said. However, I now need to badly go and play Irish tunes in the pub, so I bid you goodbye for now.

    14
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    Mute Dave O Keeffe
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    Jul 1st 2017, 4:47 PM

    @Ken Hayden: defended Islamic militants? Can you clarify whether that was as a lawyer or as a citizen? Also can you clarify that it wasn’t perpetrators of 9/11 as was previously stated on this site?

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    Mute Ken Hayden
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    Jul 1st 2017, 6:24 PM

    @Mick Tobin: He was a legal consultant for Zacarius Moussaoui , the shoe bomber .
    There are links here to various news reports and video clips , if you follow them you will open up a trail . I will give you two links , one about Khan and the other about the Quilliam foundation .
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-27/london-mayors-ties-extremism-call-commitment-fighting-terror-question
    https://medium.com/@jonasspooner/blowback-in-manchester-and-why-quilliam-must-be-investigated-f9472be1f26c

    27
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    Mute Ken Hayden
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    Jul 1st 2017, 9:11 PM

    @Ken Hayden: In the second link you will also find a connection to Irish Jihadis . I probably couldn’t say the name here , but you will find it .

    15
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    Mute KingBen
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    Jul 1st 2017, 2:55 PM

    Why even entertain them. Round up their family and put them all on a flight back to where they came from. Free flight home, everyone is a winner. Especially the UK taxpayer.

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    Mute Richard Lippy Collins
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    Jul 1st 2017, 6:22 PM

    @KingBen: put their families back on flights to Leicester and Birmingham?

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    Mute KingBen
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    Jul 1st 2017, 6:41 PM

    @Richard Lippy Collins: no, they are not from Leicester or Birmingham. I’d suggest the middle east somewhere, doesn’t really matter. Just out of the country that welcomed them and gave them free houses, education, health and opportunities.

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    Mute billy Dorney
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    Jul 1st 2017, 10:02 PM

    @KingBen: yep,lock stock,and barrel,,,total

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    Mute Lukey
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    Jul 1st 2017, 3:13 PM

    Muslim and western values are not compatible we must stand up and defend our native cultures before Islamic domination prevails . it’s simple, Europe must wake up. Many parts of France,Britain,Holland and Belgium it’s too already too late . Ultimately it’s a numbers game, we must not ever allow what’s happened in Germany(2015) to happen elsewhere or else it’s all over

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    Mute Tomasz Kuchnik
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    Jul 1st 2017, 3:05 PM

    There should be super severe law for that, if found connected to terrorist cell they should have UK citizenships scraped and sent back to Turkey, never allow them back. With law like this all terrorists to be will think twice.

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    Mute Pie O ' My
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    Jul 1st 2017, 2:21 PM

    Those pesky atheists at it again…. Oh wait

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    Mute Dee Mann
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    Jul 3rd 2017, 5:01 PM

    Islam is to spread in every country and this is meant to be a good thing….. come on cop on, their way of living not suited for western life sure most of them say it themselves, only one solution if you want to fit in adjust to the country you choose to live in and respect our Christian value and our country, nobody’s saying convert but just remembered your choose to move to Christian Europe, and stop playing the race card when you don’t get your ways….

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