An Irish tour company has made a donation to Special Olympics Ireland instead of offering a refund to a customer who complained about being placed on a tour “hijacked by the stress” caused by the presence of children with special needs.
The customer sent an email following the tour to say that they found it “seriously disturbing”.
They wrote: “As we were waiting to board the vehicle, a special needs child was having to be coerced to mount the stairs and was clearly disturbed. Then we got on board ourselves, we discovered that about half of the passengers were special needs children, some of them rocking backwards and forwards, others shouting and one of them managed to loose his helmet over the side [sic].”
The email continued: “This activity throughout the tour was seriously disturbing for myself and my guests (and I would imagine the other passengers) and I feel very strongly that I should have been alerted that there were going to be so many special needs passengers booked onto the tour so that I could have made alternative arrangements.
“I would like to stress that I have no complaint about the driver, who was excellent, but our tour was hijacked by the stress caused by these unfortunate children and I request a refund of the €70 charged.”
The initial response offered by the tour company – click to enlarge
The company (which has chosen to remain anonymous) responded, apologising for the fact that the customer and their guests did not enjoy the tour but refused to offer a refund.
They wrote: “The booking in question was a party of two carers and eight people with special needs. As this booking made up less than half of the vehicle capacity, it was left open to book by other passengers, which would be standard in our company…
“When a booking is taken by our office from a party with special needs, we do not question the ‘severity’ of the service users’ disabilities. We assume that those booking them on, who are specifically trained in their care (which we are not), would have an awareness and understanding of what the service users are able to ‘cope’ with. In this case, the carers who made the booking obviously deemed the party able to partake in the tour.
They continued: “I can honestly say that we have never received a complaint regarding mixing special needs bookings with other passengers. We pride ourselves in ensuring that people can take part in our tours regardless of background, culture, abilities or disabilities”
They donated the €70 to Special Olympics Ireland, thinking that they wouldn’t hear from the customer again.
They were wrong.
The second email read: “I accept your apology and am quite happy about you sending the €70 to support Special Olympics Ireland. However I would strongly suggest that you relook your policy of only advising paying customers if 14 or more passengers are from a Special Needs group.
“The very nature of these unfortunate people is that a very few of them can create a really stressful situation for the rest of you passengers.”
The donation made on behalf of the company to Special Olympics Ireland – click to enlarge
At this stage the matter was handed over to the Company Director who responded over a week later.
Their response read: “We appreciate your input into our policies but can confirm that we will not be amending them as suggested. Regarding your suggestion to reserve specific times for special needs groups – this is not a feasible, kind nor inclusive policy. We do not believe that a parent wishing to bring their child with special needs should be segregated and only permitted to book onto certain hours.”
The director added: “Although we as a Country have come on leaps and bounds over the last number of years in relation to acceptance of minority/’different’ groups of people, it is clear that there is still some work to be done. There is absolutely no way we will introduce such segregation as to separate people with special needs from other passengers. We believe that this would be bordering on blatant discrimination, and we have no interest in introducing such outdated practices.”
The customer then seemed to agree with the argument about segregation before suggesting again that the company alert passengers when smaller groups of people with special needs are booked onto a specific tour.
Let’s just say, this is one tour company we’d be proud to support in the future. If you want more information on or want to make a donation to Special Olympics Ireland, click here.
