21st November 2007

Transcript from RTE Radio 1 programme, Live Line. Broadcast at 1.45pm. Host Joe Duffy.

JD / Gerard, Good Afternoon
Gerard / Good Afternoon
JD / Before your start, let me give out our text number which is 51551 because you make the point in your contact with us Gerard that there is no way, and Ireland is unusual in this, there is no way that you can text our emergency services and it is very important to you and your family Gerard?
Gerard / That’s correct. I’m partially deaf and my wife is profoundly deaf and if anything happens to me I’m afraid that she would have any contact with the emergency services especially in the home. She would need to either run to the neighbours or call a family member that might be nearby to come to help her. She actually has no means of contacting the emergency services.
JD / Does your wife and yourself use text for other services such as ESB or gas or whatever?
Gerard / Yes, the ESB does have a text service for ESB bills. You can text your meter reading into a particular number and they correct your ESB bill. It is quite a good service. I’m quite happy with it. In terms of other things like when we go to hospital for example. If my wife goes to hospital on her own, she would be in the waiting room. She would let reception know that she is there and when the time comes to be called for the appointment they would call her name a couple of times and that would be it. She would be passed over and they would move on to someone else. After an hour or so she would find that some people she would have recognised as coming in after her are going in ahead of her. So it is just a lack of understanding for normal hearing people to understand about deaf people. Other things like, for example, if you have a personal problem and you want to go and talk to someone, like yourself Joe you can ring up a counsellor, make an appointment, go in and see the counsellor, say your bit, everything is kept confidential and your happy then that you’ve got whatever problem you have out of your system. With a deaf person it is not really like that. You have to take an interpreter in with us and things might have to be said that she might not be comfortable with, because the deaf community being such a small community if one person hears or does something, its like a telegraph pole to sign language. So even though the interpreters have confidentiality, its just that the trust the deaf person would have toward the interpreter – their confidence in the confidentiality part of it.
JD / These are things I would never thought of, they are so powerful. You make the point in your contact with us Gerard that Deaf parents often rely on their young children who can hear to act as interpreters. Tell us the situations.
Gerard / Yes. For example if there is a parent/teacher meeting in the school and with the cost of the interpreters being expensive, for example the last time I checked it was, if it was in the Dublin area they charge you a half day fee of €135 but if you go outside the county of Dublin, they charge you €270. So if your only 5 ???? they charge you €270.
JD / To bring an interpreter with you to a parent/teacher meeting or a discussion with a teacher?
Gerard / So if you’re a Deaf parent, it depends on the child to go with them to a school. Now some teachers would have the time to sit down and write on a notepad to the parents and they can communicate through paper whereas they bring their child, its probably got biased information and not be the exact information that they require.
JD / That’s a very good point because parent/teacher meetings as we all know, they seem to, we were told in benchmarking they were going to be outside of school hours, now they all seem to be right bang in the middle of the school day. I’m sure there are exceptions. But also at parent/teacher meetings there’s a queue to see the teachers or whatever. There in a hurry obviously because there’s a lot of parents. Time is limited for some reason, very limited, but they’re in a hurry so to sit down and write out everything and reply if the two parents are hard of hearing would be extremely cumbersome for everyone involved. So I see your point there.
Gerard / Yes
JD / The other thing you point out. Because you can text the ESB, the general number the ESB have. So the technology is there to text 999, so do you know why we can’t do it?
Gerard / I just couldn’t answer you that offhand in terms of why. I think it is just the lack of understanding maybe from the emergency services or the HSE or just that the people are just not aware of the kind of problems that Deaf people face on a day to day basis.
JD / I just wonder are the fire service or the Gardai, are they worried about getting hoax texts, for example?
Gerard / That could be it as well, but I wouldn’t think it is that way. A deaf person wouldn’t even think of hoax sort of things but within the Deaf community we have the Irish Deaf Society that would kind of assist us in terms of information and stuff like that but they would give us numbers where you can contact them but I’d say it would be closed activity within the Deaf community and I doubt anyone outside the Deaf community would have that number if you want to stop the hoaxing business.
JD / Stay there Gerard. A good point. Stay there if you would please. Our number is 1850 715 815 and is our email and 51551 is the text. Mary, Good Afternoon.
Mary Stringer / Hi Joe, How are you?
JD / Just tell us your connection with the Deaf community.
MS / Well, both my parents are Deaf. I’m also an Irish Sign Language interpreter. I just wanted to take up on a couple of points that Gerard was talking about. I fully agree with everything he has said, however, the whole issue of interpretation and using children as interpreters is just so inappropriate, Joe. In my own experience, by the age of 10 or 12 I was able to tell you what money my parents had in their bank account, what their house insurance cost because as a child I was brought in to interpret in these situations. 7 years ago my Dad died of a condition called Hemochromatosis. The night before he died my Mam came home from the hospital. She was extremely upset and distraught. She said that a priest had been there giving him the last rites. We as a family never knew how seriously ill he was. It wasn’t until the next morning I got a phone call to say that somebody had to come into the hospital with my Mam and that she had to bring along her own interpreter. So of course, being the dutiful daughter I went along. He had died by the time we got there. Obviously I was extremely upset. I was a 16 year old girl and my Dad had died.
JD / So Mary, did you end up telling your mother?
MS / I did, I did. I got there and asked the nurse, “is he going to be OK”? The nurse said “No”. So I told my Mam, “he’s not going to be OK”. We went into the day room. We sat there for a bit. The nurse came back in and said “the priest is on the way down and the doctor would be in to see us”. I just wanted to go home. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to see his body but my Mam was so upset. She wanted to find out what the hell had happened. We didn’t know this was coming at all. We found out afterwards that everyone else except us knew that he was going to die, that it was actually that serious. The priest came down and said a few prayers around the bedside and I said to my Mam he saying a Rosary, he’s saying an Our Father, a Hail Mary. By the time a doctor got there we were obviously both extremely upset. The doctor came in. He acknowledged my Mam. He sit beside my Mam. He didn’t acknowledge me at all. He basically went on to tell my Mam that my Dad had died of Hemochromatosis. Now this was the first time I’d heard the word Hemochromatosis. So he went on to tell my Mam he had Hemochromatosis and off he went on this big spiel about what had happened to my Dad’s body. Half way through I just said to my Mam “I’m sorry, I just can’t do this. I don’t know what this man is telling me” I don’t know if you’re familiar with the process of interpreting but you have to actually understand what is being said in order to interpret something in a meaningful way. I told my Mam “I just can’t do this”. In the meantime the doctor just kept talking. I was sobbing and saying to my Mam “I can’t do this”. She kept saying “But why?”. We were having a completely different conversation while this doctor continued to talk about Hemochromatosis whatever the hell he was saying. He left. There was no invitation for my Mam to come back with a professional interpreter that wasn’t myself so that she could get that unbiased explanation of why he had actually died. The point about trying to text the emergency services, the week before he died, my Dad took a turn for the worst and only for I was there we wouldn’t have been able to contact. We have very good neighbours and my Gran lives around the corner. My Mam could have asked one of them to ring an ambulance but because I was there, I was able to do it.
JD / But if your mother had been there with your father alone there was no way she could have contacted an ambulance.
MS / Yes, there was no way she could have contact the ambulance or anybody else. As both my parents are profoundly Deaf none of them could use the phone. I know in the UK they have tried to set up… the last I’ve heard, it was a pilot project, where Deaf people when they buy a mobile phone, they register their number with the emergency services so that when a text came from their number, it was seen as a genuine call and not a hoax call. I think the technology is there.
JD / Mary, isn’t it also fair to say, its like when people make buses and shops more accessible, and rightly so, for people who have disabilities, they are making it more accessible for all. It's for everybody, everyone benefits. Surely if we set up a text service for the Gardai or the fire service, especially the Gardai, if you went in a difficult situation where you were being attacked and you felt you couldn’t speak that it might alert your attacker, you could always text the Gardai and get help.
MS / Yes, exactly.
JD / If you were in a car that you felt uncomfortable with somebody, you obviously didn’t want to pick up your phone and dial, you could text the Gardai without your assailant knowing.
MS / Yes, exactly. I think the issue is just what Gerard said. It is a complete lack of awareness and I think it is a complete lack of willingness on the part of the Government to do anything. For years now, a number of years, Irish Deaf Society has been campaigning to have the recognition of Irish Sign Language as an official language. In the UK they’ve recognised British Sign Language and in Northern Ireland they’ve actually recognised both BSL and ISL.
JD / Will you just explain what you mean by Irish Sign Language?
MS / Irish Sign Language is sign language. It’s the language that Irish Deaf people use.
JD / And it developed in a particular way in Ireland?
MS / Yes. It has developed in the same way that the Irish language has developed and the English language.
JD / But its not… ..pardon my….its not for people….and this was explained to myself yesterday in detail, thanks to yourself, Mary. Its not Gaelic as we know it translated into sign language
MS / No. No.
JD / And its not English as we know it translated into sign language.
MS / Exactly
JD / It is a particular form of communicating through signing that is peculiar to this country.
MS / Exactly
JD / Just as in the UK, they’ve developed a particular form of communicating that is peculiar to them as well.
MS / Yes, exactly.
JD / So they’ve particular signs for particular words?
MS / They have particular signs for particular words.
JD / And ways of speaking?
MS / It is a completely different structure, a completely different grammar. Like I say, in Northern Ireland they have recognised both ISL and BSL and we’re just slow to do it here.
JD / And what does that mean if it is recognised?
MS / It its recognised as an official language, it has to be legislated for. It has to be protected.
JD / So the State has to supply an interpreter?
MS / They must, yes.
JD / So at the minute, Mary, as Gerard’s explained so well, if his wife goes to a hospital. She’s sitting there and someone on the tannoy says “No. 47 next” and his wife misses the appointment. If ISL was an official language, that hospital would have to provide an interpreter?
MS / They would, Yes.
JD / OK
MS / At the moment, they have a Disability Act that says that people who have a disability should have full access to public services. That then would include Deaf people. However, there is no awareness there. What is interesting to me, Joe, being an interpreter myself, that I’ve often seen, if I’ve to go along say to an appointment with my Mam or something, if somebody from a different country needs access to that public service, they, and rightly so, are provided with an interpreter without any question. However, for some reason, people in this country don’t see Deaf people as having ….
JD / OK, so your point is, as we know, and rightly so, if Romanians or Polish people are in court or whatever, an interpreter is provided by the court.
MS / Yes but the court system in Ireland is quite good around Sign Language interpretation but in other areas like Social Welfare, they don’t see Deaf people as being Deaf people with their own language. They see them as being hearing people who can’t hear, people who just would be able to communicate if they read somebody’s lips and that is not the situation. Its very inappropriate.
JD / Is it seen as a medical problem?
MS / It is. That’s the issue. It’s seen very much as Deaf people need to be fixed. The Deaf community themselves would call themselves a linguistic minority, a linguistic and cultural minority. They have their own language. their own culture and along with that then that needs to be respected. Because in Ireland for such a long time we’ve seen Deaf people as we need to fix them, we need to make them hear, Deaf people don’t want that. If you ask Deaf people would they like to become hearing in the morning, they would say No. Their own issue is access to not only public services but also to a lot of private services.