The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Annita Demetriou, has condemned an incident in which access for a person with a disability was blocked in Parliament's internal car park, and has instructed the chamber's General Directorate to take all necessary steps to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
A statement issued on Tuesday, 8 September, said the Speaker had been briefed on the circumstances of the incident and had condemned it outright.
The statement followed a strong reaction from Themis Anthopoulou of KYSOAA, who said in a social media post that a car had been parked on a ramp at one of Parliament's entrances, blocking access. According to her account, she and another woman were forced to wait outside in the sun while due to attend a session of the Parliamentary Committee on Labour.
Anthopoulou said that when the driver eventually arrived to move the car and was told about the problem it had caused, he replied, "Well, I couldn't find parking." She had criticised the incident sharply in her post, writing, "Shame, and shame again, on our thinking."
