Local Faces: Joe Mason

JOE Mason grew up in a household that always treated those with disabilities equally, to the extent that he can’t recall a time in his life when he wasn’t around people with disabilities.

He was raised in Rosemount in Dundrum, as the youngest of three boys and one girl, before he gained a younger brother at age 13 after his parents fostered his brother, Patrick.

Patrick has an intellectual disability and was fostered by the Mason family after initially spending occasional weekends with them.

Joe and Patrick shared the box room in the house, where they had bunk beds, and Joe took great joy in having a younger sibling.

“I loved him from the moment he moved in,” Joe said. “He had lived in a very large institution, and my sister worked in a school close to it and used to bring him back to our house some weekends.

“It went from weekends to my parents permanently fostering him. I went from being the youngest in the family to having a younger brother, which I always wanted.

“Patrick struggled with a lot of trauma, having left institutionalised care, but my mam was amazing and supported him through it.”

Joe added: “Patrick has very little speech – but he has enough for the people who know him to understand him – and he wouldn’t be particularly independent, in a lot of ways.

“But in his own way, he brings as much value to people’s lives as they do to his.”

Joe’s earliest interactions with people with intellectual disabilities came about as a result of his mother working as a cleaner in St Michael’s House, which is a period of time he remembers fondly.

“I was born and reared around people with disabilities,” he said. “My mother worked as a cleaner in St Michael’s House in Goatstown and she’d bring me to work with her when I was a child.

“A chap called Michael, who had an intellectual disability, would look after me while she was working.

“He’d keep an eye on me, or bring me for walks or push me when I was in a buggy.

“I’ve always been around people with disabilities, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t.

“One of the things in my family, is that we never really saw a difference – we had no prejudice around people with disabilities because we were always around them in a positive way.”

From a young age, Joe knew he wanted to work with people with intellectual disabilities and began his career in his mid-teens.

“I left school when I was 15, after my Inter Cert,” Joe said. “I wouldn’t have been considered very academic, and academia held no interest for me.

“I come from a working-class background, so no one ever spoke about going to college. I asked my mam and dad if I could leave school after my Inter Cert, and my dad said I couldn’t leave unless I got a job.

“So I went to St Michael’s House in Goatstown – my sister was working there at the time – and she said I was too young for a job there, but she got me into a foundation studies course about intellectual disabilities.

“Then I finished the course, and started bouncing around St Michael’s House as a relief worker. A while later, just before I turned 17, I got a full-time job there.

“I worked in children’s special care, working with kids who were profoundly intellectually and physically disabled.”

Over his 11-year tenure in St Micheal’s House, Joe rose through the ranks and left the service in 1997 as a senior supervisor, to take up a new role with WALK as a day service supervisor.

“The day service in WALK had been a part-time service, but they were looking for a service manager to operate it full-time,” Joe recalled.

“After a while, I started to look at WALK as my home and I wanted to develop the services there.

“Certainly, in the early stages of developing the services, I would’ve been very clear about saying, ‘If it’s not good enough for Patrick, then it’s not good enough for anyone’. He’s like my litmus test.

“And our job at WALK is to help and support people to live their best life, and our supports should have that same value.”

As for becoming the CEO of WALK 17 years ago and proudly remaining in that role, Joe said it happened by chance, more so than any dogged determination to become CEO.

“When we started to develop the services in WALK, we set up an in-home community project and there was also a respite house in Inchicore, and they asked me to take over responsibility for it.

“So as our day services, residential and respite services changed, so did my role. I never asked for the role, or applied to be the CEO of WALK. It just happened, almost by osmosis.”

When asked what he’s most proud of achieving as CEO, Joe instead heaped praise on WALK staff, volunteers and clients – adding that he’s most proud of their achievements.

Now 52, and reflecting on spending his entire working life so far working in disability services, Joe said he wants to see a change in society, where people are more accepting of the capabilities of those with disabilities.

“I would like people to recognise and value the contributions that people with disabilities can make with equal participation in our society,” he said.

“I would like people to value ability ahead of disability.”