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DISTRESSING
Mother of disabled boy returns to car to find note threatening to report her to gardaí
The note was left when Siobhan Quigley was leaving her three-year-old son at an occupational therapy appointment.
HERE IS THE note that the mother of a disabled child found on her car after bringing her son to lunch.
Siobhan Quigley, whose three-year-old son Robert has cerebral palsy and cystic fibrosis, had travelled up to Dublin from Mayo to attend an occupational therapy session for her child.
Speaking on RTÉ’s The Ryan Tubridy Show this morning, Siobhan said of her son, “To us day to day, he is a three-year-old with a monkey that you have to keep your eye on. He is full of devilment and fun.”
Parking her car in Carrickmines in the south of Dublin, she and her husband took Robert to a café that they are regulars in due to its accessibility.
Upon returning, her husband discovered the note under the windscreen wiper of her car. He was initially reluctant to show it to Siobhan due to its upsetting content.
The note read:
Having a child does not entitle you to use a disabled parking bay. Consider those less able. I have photographed the disabled badge and reporting your fraudulent use of same to garda.
Speaking about the disabled badge, Siobhan said, “Robert has been medically assessed for a disability badge and has received a disability badge. So we use the spaces when he is in the car with us. Mainly to take him in and out of the car.”
Siobhan said that she felt the note was an attack, and that it would have been much better if the person who left the note had approached her and asked her about her son’s condition rather than making an assumption.
“If they had had the gumption to come up to us and say, ‘actually, what are you doing?’, you know I would have been happy to have a conversation with them and explain the situation. We don’t hide Robert’s disability,” she said.
She hoped that by appearing on the programme she might stop the person acting the same way in future.
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