DERMOT HAYES has been honoured for his tireless work over thirty five years as a leading disability activist in Clare.
At the Clare Leader Forum conference entitled ‘People Power’ held at The Temple Gate Hotel, Dermot’s decades of human rights activism was applauded when he was presented with a lifetime achievement award.
Corofin native Dermot who is a member of the Independent Living Movement Ireland (ILMI) was celebrated with reflections from his life by those that know and love him best.
Hearing Dermot pipe up and speak at public forums has been par for the course since the 1970s but on Wednesday last his wife Marian made a rare address when paying tribute to her husband. “I was overwhelmed when my wife Marian got up and spoke, she would never speak at these events. She mentioned my podcasts and the energy I have to do things and being positive and how I’ve been a great father for the children and a fighter for disability,” Dermot admitted.
His close friends Gabriella Hanrahan, Ann Marie Flanagan, Martin Tobin and Michael Flanagan all spoke while Jim Shannon brought up Hayes’ election posters from the past. He ran in 1985 for the Workers Party, for Labour in 2014 and as an Independent in 2019 but never made it onto Clare County Council, citing the difficulties in facing off with the big parties as a barrier.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Dermot said he was notified in advance by Ann Marie to expect a presentation. “It was lovely, it was amazing really. Thirty five years is a long time, I should be on a pension, we’ve been through a lot”.
“We’ve seen changes, the language has changed, people were called cripples and handicaps, that has all changed significantly. My good friend, the late Thomas Connole couldn’t cross the road but then we got beeper lights installed by the local authority. There was no accessible toilets in Ennis but Thomas Ryan helped us to get accessible toilets, Wexford County Council had done it before but we got them in 1996, it might seem like a small thing but it was a very big step,” he stated,
Ex county councillors the late Martin Lafferty (IND) and Christy Curtin (IND) were hailed by Dermot as “instrumental in getting accessible housing for people with disabilities and for having universal toilets in Council built homes which is very important”.
Lobbying that he was involved in led to the introduction of personal assistants, home supports and SNAs for people with disabilities. “We lobbied for them and in 2015 the Disability Act came in after we lobbied very hard. In 1997 we got the personal assistants, the day after my wedding. Michael Chambers was excellent then, people really respected and listened to him, they supported him no bother whereas they might have been slower to support me”.
Hayes continued, “A lot has been achieved, mostly all buses are accessible and the trains. When people were going to Dublin before 1992, they had to go into the car luggage, you couldn’t get anything in, it was inaccessible, that has changed now”.
152 people attended the conference where the keynote speakers were Siobhán O’Donoghue the director and co-founder of Uplift and Joan Carthy national advocacy manager with IWA. Fionn Angus, Avril Graham, Jack Callinan and Joan McDonald all partook in a fireside conversation on the importance of grassroots activism.
Activists of the past were also honoured with plaques presented to deceased disability advocates, namely Michael Chambers (Cooraclare), Helen Liddy (Newmarket-on-Fergus), Thomas Connole (Carron), Geraldine Keane (Kilmihil), Donnacha Rynne (Miltown Malbay), Pat Carey, Martin Slattery (Newmarket-on-Fergus and Ann Leyden (Ennis).
In March 2023, Dermot launched his memoir ‘The Road The Rises’, the father of two now based in Ennis has presented ‘Radio Beams’ on Raidió Corca Baiscinn since 2013.
