Last Tuesday was the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The term “persons with disabilities” encompasses a wide range of individuals, as some can be self-sufficient while others need care 24/7. 

Thankfully, from a social perspective, as a country we have come a long way in recognising the needs of persons with disability, thanks to the endeavours of the Catholic Church which provides pastoral and care services, government’s efforts to go beyond simple cash handouts, and the sterling work of NGOs who work in the various sectors of disability. 

But culturally, we are still way behind. As a country, we still exclude persons who are different to us, including persons with disability, neurodiverse individuals and so on. This reflects itself in the world of work and this explains the heading of this week’s contribution.

Irrespective of what is said by those who should know better, our economy has been on a growth path for the last odd 37 years. There were some blips along the way, but at no point during this period did we have severe unemployment. 

Thirty years ago, we had employers complaining about the lack of workers as much as we have now. We had addressed this by reducing the size of the public sector. In the last years, we made it worse by increasing the size of the public sector and through service contracts issued by the public sector. It was a great opportunity to ensure that persons with disability and neurodiverse persons are provided with employment and for employers to make the necessary changes to accommodate such persons at the place of work.

We had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to implement an effective policy of inclusion, equity and diversity at work. Unfortunately, we went the other way. 

We preferred to grow our economy on cheap foreign labour rather than on a policy which brought together the needs of individuals, economic growth and social cohesion.

We had and still have strong economic growth and, as such, there is no valid reason why we effectively continue to exclude persons with disability from work or why we do not recognise the special needs of neurodiverse persons. 

We need to become more inclusive in our approach, we need to provide incentives to employers to properly accommodate such persons, and we need to go beyond paying lip service.

To paraphrase Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken, we had the opportunity to take the road less travelled and that would have made all the difference. Sadly, we went the other way.

Note: On December 4, John Consiglio rightly pointed out that when Malta launched its strategy to promote financial services in Malta, “The Malta Centre of the London Institute of Bankers was already represented and active here, and its associateship exams and qualification (AIB) was then already recognised (even by the University of Malta) as a suitable banking qualification”.

The AIB qualification had been available in Malta for several years, if not decades, and this enabled us to have a cadre of professional bankers.

Moreover, I also dare say that it would not have been possible for Malta to be so successful in its endeavours to become a respectable financial services centre without the expertise and insight of these professional bankers.

To these, I add the qualified accountants and qualified insurance practitioners However, those who possess such qualifications know well that further qualifications were required to achieve the success we achieved in developing financial services in Malta. These qualifications were not available in Malta in 1987.