Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-17-Speech-1-053"

Predicate	Value (sorted: default)
rdf:type	lpv_eu:Speech2
dcterms:Date	"2003-11-17"^^xsd:date2
dcterms:Is Part Of	lp_eu:European Year of People with Disabilities (2003)2
dcterms:Language	"en"^^xsd:language2
lpv:document identification number	"en.20031117.5.1-053"2
lpv:hasSubsequent	lp_eu:2003-11-17-Speech-1-0542
lpv:speaker	lp:John Bowis2
lpv:spoken text	"Mr President, in this year we should highlight the problems but also celebrate the achievements of people living with disability, not just people of genius – the Beethovens, Miltons, Van Goughs and Stephen Hawkings – but those who are unknown. For example, the boy from the north of England who had learning difficulties and was written off by the education service, but was then found to have musical ability. Whereas had he had a job in industry he could not have read the safety signs, he went on to play in the orchestra at Covent Garden. Then there is the dancer who trained at the Ballet Rambert School. She was profoundly deaf, but learnt to dance through the rhythm of her feet and went on to dance with the Portuguese National Ballet. I knew a tiny, frail, 23-year-old girl who had been confined to a wheelchair all her life and had undergone 26 lifesaving operations. She was a trainee at the SHARE community. She decided to do a sponsored wheelchair push, self-propelling the wheels with her tiny hands. As she herself said, it was the first time in her life she had the opportunity to help other disabled people. People can and do achieve, despite severe physical and mental disabilities. For a few that means successful careers in business, politics, the arts or professions. For most it means more local, private, domestic achievements: coping with living and contributing to the lives of those around them. We have a duty to help not in an intrusive or invasive way, but by removing legal, physical and psychological barriers. They bring the courage. They deserve from us the opportunity and the dignity. In government I was able to bring in a system of direct payments so that a person was not provided for by social service departments if he or she preferred to have the cash equivalent to purchase the services from the supplier of their choice. If you buy your own services, meals, transport and so on, then you are in charge, you have a form of dignity and independence which too often is lacking in the relationship between state services and citizens. That is the route we should be seeking from this year on."@en1
lpv:spokenAs	unknown; Conservative and Unionist Party (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 member; Committee on Development and Cooperation (2002-05-30--2004-07-19)3 vice-chair; Delegation to the EU-Kazakhstan, EU-Kyrgyzstan and EU-Uzbekistan Parliamentary Cooperation Committees and Delegation for relations with Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan and Mongolia (2002-02-07--2004-07-19)3 member; Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy (2002-01-17--2004-07-19)3 member; EPP-ED (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 member; Members from the European Parliament to the Joint Parliamentary Assembly of the Agreement between the African, Caribbean and Pacific States and the European Union (ACP-EU) (2002-02-06--2004-07-19)3
lpv:unclassifiedMetadata	"Bowis (PPE-DE )."1

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