It’s strange how songs can trigger off thoughts and articles. I was fully sure that Adele’s Skyfall theme song would fuel my thoughts as I pondered the brave new world of the GAA, in which Sky TV have gained the rights to fifteen Championship matches.
Then Hall and Oates got in the way, as they warbled two heart-breaking words.
‘She’s Gone’.
There I was, fresh from brushing my teeth this morning, when my brother broke the news to me.
“It’s Angela,” he said. “She’s Gone.”
And she’s only 55.
Is it my fault? Did some of my recent troubled thoughts about Rehab cosmically transport themselves into her aura and break her heart? Did my concerns over whether she really did loved us disabled folk cause her sufficient angst to retire at just 55?
She’s Gone.
Who am I kidding? Angela probably never read any of my thoughts. But she has gone. The question we have to ask now is how willingly did she go?
I’ve read her statement. She was indeed a major asset to the Rehab group/multinational/empire, and she was obviously instrumental in the international expansion of the group.
But when the statement turns to disabled people, Ms Kerins said she wanted Rehab to “focus its entire energies on its core activity of developing and delivering services to people with disabilities and others who are disadvantaged.”
This is where my cynical, disabled activist past life comes back to haunt me. Disabled people, according to this statement, are there to be supported and trained by Rehab – but where was the really important stuff, about disabled people’s rights or how Rehab could have supported and promoted this?
Will we see Angela again? The PAC certainly thinks there are questions she needs to answer, and personally I hope they get their way. The power and influence Rehab had (and still has) is becoming visible to the wider public, and I still think there are questions that need to be answered.
Of course, the PAC may only be able ask questions pertaining to the use of public money – and even then, they may run up against the idea that Angela is a private citizen who can take cover under the Constitution, as is her right.
But readers of past Undaunted columns know that the real question here – and the one we’ve only now started to ask – is ‘what exactly is Rehab?’ The PAC has started this process… and I feel another song coming on, by way of marking today’s events:
