Unfortunately late last night it appears that the National DPAC twitter account was wrongly used, by one of our activists who had access to the account, to criticise and attack Staying Inn and Dr Amy Kavanagh; which the DPAC Steering Committee was unaware of until today.
The event was criticised unfairly for failing to provide BSL interpreting at what is described as an inclusive activity. Captioning was provided which in these times particularly, to the Steering Committee seems a reasonable compromise.
As a grass root activist group we are aware through our own experiences that it is often impossible to provide BSL at all events unless it has specifically been requested & funded due not only to the cost but to the lack of investment in suitably qualified interpreters.
We believe the criticisms of the event and Amy were unfair and unjustified, and we unreservedly apologise for any negative affect this has had on Amy personally or on the incredible efforts she and others have put in to developing a means for disabled people to come together during this crisis.
While it’s true to say our activist felt obligated to comment on the differences between fully accessible and reasonable compromises; the way they went about communicating this to The Staying Inn was wholly unacceptable.
We are extremely sorry that our national twitter account was misused in this way to pursue this matter and we have urgently reviewed who has access to use this account in future.
All local groups operate autonomously and we have no control over their day-to-day social media usage.
