I thought about voting before work. This was the first time the thought ever crossed my mind. I resisted and kept to my routine to make sure I was nice and relaxed heading into work.

The vote will be cast some time in the late afternoon.

My polling station is five minutes away. It has always been my polling station. Ever since 1987 when my first vote was cast.

My polling station has a life outside the days it is a polling station.

A polling station where the booths are lined up in the assembly hall.

The assembly hall down the corridor from the main door.

A small step is at the main door but it’s manageable. You walk down the corridor to the assembly hall.

On either side of the corridor, there are rooms. I think they are called classrooms.

The assembly hall comfortably holds 15 booths, plenty of room for the desks with the polling clerks.

I get to the end of the corridor. The assembly hall is in plain sight. My democratic act is about to be done.

Once I manage not to fall down the three steps.

Thankfully I never have fallen there as a voter.

The sad thing is I never had a chance to fall down those steps as a pupil.

My polling station is the local national school. To be fair they have built a modern building beside it but they still use the ‘old’ part as a polling station.

Throughout the day, you would have heard representatives from the Disability Federation of Ireland tell Newstalk it is a disabled person’s ‘responsibility’ to tell their polling station that they need an accessible voting station.

This, in itself, is a disgrace, but don’t forget polling stations have lives outside the election.

They are schools.

Now, what does that tell you about how we treat disabled children?

Think about it as you vote.