Sinn F\u00e9in Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has raised serious concerns around the daft decision to use Holy Rosary School in Ballycragh, Tallaght, as a polling station for the local and European elections last Friday.<\/p>\n
Crowe said that the grounds of the Holy Rosary School are currently a building site and many physically impaired citizens were unable to make the distance from the road to the polling station to cast their vote.<\/p>\n
Deputy Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very unhappy about the use of Holy Rosary School as a polling station last Friday. The grounds of the Holy Rosary School are a building site and it is clear that it was unsuitable to be a polling station, particularly for anyone with a physical impairment.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the day and night of the election potential voters were directed by signage through a hedge and then had to follow a gravel footpath for a long distance from the road to the polling station to cast a vote. Additionally there was no lightening from the road to the school to guide anyone walking on the unstable and dangerous surface.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know of a number of people who were denied their opportunity to cast their vote because of their physical impairment that would not allow them to travel this haphazard and dangerous route.<\/p>\n
\u201cA voter arrived on her electric wheelchair and the signs directed her through a brick arch and to a hedge which she could not get through.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother voter from Ballycragh, whose own son was a candidate, was not able to cast her vote because the obstacles and the distance from the road to the ballot boxes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI personally informed the Presiding Officer and made staff aware of the difficulties at the polling station.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Crowe continued: <\/p>\n
\u201cI raised the issue with the Taoiseach in the D\u00e1il this week and I intend to do so again next week. I have also written to the County Sheriff asking him to formally investigate the decision to use Holy Rosary as a polling station and whether the school was looked at before polling and the site deemed safe to access for people with physical impairment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened on polling day was degrading and unacceptable, and it didn\u2019t have to happen. Structures need to be put in place to make sure this never occurs again. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was clearly a systems breakdown in this case and an unknown number of citizens were denied their vote. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a daft and irresponsible decision to situate the polling station at this location. The person responsible should be made accountable and measures need to be taken to ensure this doesn\u2019t happen again.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has raised serious concerns around the daft decision to use Holy Rosary School in Ballycragh, Tallaght, as a polling station for the local and European elections last Friday. Crowe said that the grounds of the Holy Rosary School are currently a building site and many physically impaired […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dublin-south-west","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1741,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions\/1741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}