For­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Ian Roach says that de­spite the his­toric ap­point­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s first vi­su­al­ly im­paired sen­a­tor, the State still falls short in ad­e­quate­ly ac­com­mo­dat­ing the dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty.

Roach was re­spond­ing to the ap­point­ment of Ali­cia Pauline Lalite-Et­ti­enne, who was sworn in as an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor on Fri­day.

The wheel­chair-bound at­tor­ney, who served in the 11th Par­lia­ment from 2013 to 2015, wel­comed Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s de­ci­sion. He said it shows that peo­ple with vary­ing dis­abil­i­ties can make sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

How­ev­er, Roach crit­i­cised the in­fra­struc­ture of Par­lia­ment, not­ing that even the coun­try’s high­est in­sti­tu­tions still lack prop­er ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty for the dif­fer­ent­ly-abled.

“Be­cause the new Par­lia­ment that was con­struct­ed, I am not sure how user-friend­ly it is for dif­fer­ent­ly-abled per­sons. I re­al­ly am not sure. And you’re start­ing from the Speak­er of the House and all these dif­fer­ent peo­ple who have to go to high­er stand­ings in the Cham­bers to de­liv­er their au­thor­i­ty. If they, for what­ev­er rea­son, be­come im­paired, break a leg or some kind of thing like that, how are they go­ing to get up there?” he asked.

Roach said these chal­lenges ex­tend be­yond Par­lia­ment to every­day life in T&T.

“When I’m in Trinidad, I have to call in ad­vance, do a re­con­nais­sance, have some­body do a re­con­nais­sance. I could get in this restau­rant... I can’t get in this restau­rant. I could get in this of­fice... I can’t get in this of­fice. And all this kind of non­sense. This is em­bar­rass­ing. As an at­tor­ney-at-law, I can­not even get in prop­er­ly in­to the cham­bers and I have to do a mat­ter. You have to sit down in the back and all that kind of non­sense.”

Roach al­so urged the Gov­ern­ment to go be­yond sym­bol­ic ap­point­ments and ad­dress leg­isla­tive short­com­ings that af­fect all dif­fer­ent­ly-abled in­di­vid­u­als in­clud­ing those with cog­ni­tive con­di­tions such as Alzheimer’s.

His com­ments fol­low Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo’s re­cent call for the in­tro­duc­tion of En­dur­ing Pow­ers of At­tor­ney, point­ing out that un­der ex­ist­ing law, a pow­er of at­tor­ney be­comes in­valid once the per­son grant­i­ng it los­es men­tal ca­pac­i­ty. She was speak­ing at the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the Par­lia­ment on Fri­day.

“Our con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides for all creed and race and so forth. So, it is right in our con­sti­tu­tion­al man­date to pro­vide and treat all equal­ly. And if you are just deal­ing with some be­cause you are able-bod­ied and you are ex­clud­ing those who are dif­fer­ent­ly-abled in what­ev­er ca­pac­i­ty, you are not deal­ing fair­ly,” Roach said.

How­ev­er, the ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, Ken­neth Suratt, pushed back against Roach’s con­cerns about ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty in Par­lia­ment, say­ing such is­sues do not typ­i­cal­ly af­fect the blind com­mu­ni­ty. He ex­plained that the blind are more of­ten chal­lenged in ac­cess­ing in­for­ma­tion, some­thing that can be eased through mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence.

In­stead, Suratt praised Lalite-Et­ti­enne’s in­clu­sion in the 13th Par­lia­ment and called on law­mak­ers to en­sure that the needs of the dif­fer­ent­ly abled are fac­tored in­to every piece of leg­is­la­tion. He al­so urged both the Prime Min­is­ter and the Op­po­si­tion Leader to fol­low the Pres­i­dent’s ex­am­ple by ap­point­ing blind in­di­vid­u­als to promi­nent roles.

“The Pres­i­dent did well. Ku­dos, front of the class. I’m not see­ing the Prime Min­is­ter do­ing the same, and I’m not see­ing the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion do­ing the same.”

Mean­while, for­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Paul Richards has re­fused to an­swer any ques­tions re­lat­ed to whether he was asked to re­turn to that role in the 13th Par­lia­ment. He on­ly ex­pressed grat­i­tude to Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo as well as for­mer pres­i­dents An­tho­ny Car­mona and Paula-Mae Weekes for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve. He al­so ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to the Prime Min­is­ter.

Min­istry as­sures ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty

The Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices has im­ple­ment­ed na­tion­al ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty re­quire­ments at all of its build­ings across T&T, as part of on­go­ing ef­forts to en­sure fa­cil­i­ties are ful­ly ac­ces­si­ble and us­able by per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the min­istry said all its lo­ca­tions will now fea­ture clear sig­nage in­di­cat­ing des­ig­nat­ed park­ing for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, along with two re­served park­ing spaces for vis­i­tors at each site.

The min­istry al­so urged oth­er pub­lic and pri­vate in­sti­tu­tions to adopt sim­i­lar mea­sures to pro­mote greater in­clu­siv­i­ty and equal ac­cess for all cit­i­zens.