"Some of the biggest obstacles facing Irish people with disabilities are attitudinal barriers in the form of prejudice (including self-prejudice), stereotypes and discrimination."

Dr Arthur O'Reilly, chief executive of the National Rehabilitation Board, was speaking six years ago at a Dublin conference about perceptions of disability and the role of the media. He said 300,000 Irish people with disabilities were "becoming this country's most isolated, unemployed and welfare dependent minority", thanks to such discrimination. Donal Toolan, a member of the Council of State representing people with disabilities, gave the keynote address to the conference and was in no doubt where the responsibility lay for this discrimination. He stated that in this country, as elsewhere, the people who controlled the "image-making machines" or controlled information sources, such as newspapers or broadcasting organisations, were invariably non-disabled people.

"Where does that leave us, people with disabilities? Whose view is objective here?" he asked. The value systems which influence and inform the Irish media, he said, are materialism, success, perfection, strength and beauty - or, basically, the survival of the fittest.

How do people with disabilities fit into this scenario? They challenge these values because they present something other than perceived perfection. Disability presents an opposite image to society's ideals. So, if and when disability is mentioned in the media, the negative aspects are stressed, the positive qualities ignored.

President Mary Robinson who closed the proceedings, used the occasion to celebrate her first full year in office. Her remarks encapsulated the optimism felt by everyone who attended the conference that the issues raised would be acted upon in a more positive and constructive way in the future by the media.

Today, however, we are still being fed a diet of images which promote the notion that young, beautiful and non-disabled people are the ideal to which we all must aspire. The images on advertising hoardings, on newspaper stands or on television, enforce the notion that anything other than perfection should be hidden, kept out of sight.

Achievements of people with disabilities, if recognised or reported on at all, are rarely seen as the result of effort or basic hard work; rather they are more likely to be portrayed as "miracles". The barriers that society puts up discourage full integration and participation, they are seen as our "plight" - and should anyone escape this symbolic yoke of human misery it is done so "against all the odds". The real miracle is that some people with disabilities have managed to develop a positive and healthy sense of self-worth - "against all the odds" - in a society which continually reinforces the fact of that difference.

charitable mentality

The most common image of disability is one which suggests a dependence on charity. All sections of the media are guilty of promoting the charitable mentality, which dictates that people with disabilities are "victims".

Charitable organisations promote a dependency culture through the media for their own purposes. Charities, and the image-makers they employ, reinforce the long-held idea that people with disabilities are totally dependent on non-disabled people to realise their own potential. They interpret and rehabilitate disability according to their image and value standards.

One just has to see the way images of people with disabilities are used in the national ego-massaging circus that has become an institution, the annual People in Need Telethon. This is the nation collectively getting its "jollies" at the expense of those trapped in the dependency merry-go-round.

Despite this disgraceful charade, those in the broadcasting sector will argue that there has been significant change for the better in its portrayal of people with disabilities in recent years. They will probably point out that RTE has fulfilled its promise to screen a six-part series called In from the Margins, made by the appropriately named Celebrate Productions.

This excellent series succeeded, for a short time at least, in giving people with disabilities the opportunity to feel pride in who they were, and celebrate that which set them apart. The series was broadcast five years ago and has not been equalled since.

The radio programme Not So Different is still endeavouring to bring relevant issues into the public arena, despite having to compete with prime-time television scheduling on Saturday evenings.

Compared to other European broadcasting organisations, RTE's response to highlighting disability issues has been pathetic. Annual telethons will not improve things one whit for people with disabilities in the longer term; changing society's perceptions about disability will.

an equality issue

Those involved in disability rights campaigns feel the issues are basically about civil rights, in that disability is fundamentally an equality issue. Comparisons can be made between the disability campaigns of today and where the women's movement was in its struggle 30 years ago.

While many will argue that there are still areas needing urgent attention before full equality is achieved for women, the most basic issues such as access for people with disabilities has not yet been legislated for (in part this is due to the recent Supreme Court ruling, which found that the 1996 Disability Act was unconstitutional).

A more fundamental reason for this situation is the apathy which tolerates exclusion from full participation in society. This is generated by a media which is equally apathetic and who feel that disability, quite simply, is not a sexy issue unless it is either sensationalised or demonised.

becoming a positive force

Overcoming prejudice and discrimination requires commitment and a multi-pronged approach where the media can be used as a positive force and as a consequence will eventually abolish stereotypes.

By way of breaking down the prejudices and stereotypes that the media has helped to foster over the years, Donal Toolan offered some ideas about how this might be achieved in the future by saying, "the image of us presented by image-makers at present is inaccurate and offensive and will go on being so unless we yell `stop'. It will go on being inaccurate and offensive unless we insist on being consulted by the media, unless we insist that the media involves us in the process. Only by these measures can an accurate representation be developed.

"As media attitudes change and develop into good practice, so the knock-on effects in public attitudes to disability will be felt.

"People with disabilities, seeing themselves accurately reflected in the media will develop a greater sense of pride in who they are, will feel more confident and able to participate. Everyone will gain and from these roots will come real change for people with disabilities".

That change hasn't happened, and, six years down the road from that conference, prejudice and discrimination is still the daily experience of an estimated 300,000 people with disabilities living within our society. The onus is on the media to change, to abolish the stereotypes and stop cultivating discrimination and the culture of exclusion.