“My advice to employers: focus always on a person’s abilities, not their disabilities”

Maeve Dermody tells Accountancy Ireland about her experiences in the workplace as a person who is profoundly Deaf

For Maeve Dermody, ACA, a truly inclusive workplace is one that supports open communication, diversity and allyship.

Dermody, who qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2018 and now works for Revenue, has had varied experiences in the working world—some positive, and some negative. 
Above all, she has learned the true value of open communication, a willingness to embrace difference, and the strengths and benefits it can bring to the working world. 

“My biggest advice to employers would be to focus always on a person’s abilities, not their disabilities,” Dermody says.

“I am Deaf, but I have strong communication skills. I am very good at writing reports and communicate very effectively this way. I am a team player and I always want to contribute, to discuss my work, and find out about other people’s work.”

Dermody joined Revenue five years ago as an Executive Officer and was promoted to Administrative Officer in 2019.

“I have been given a lot of space here to learn, develop and grow in my career,” she says.

“Not all jobs are positive, and I think this has really shown me the enormous value of providing the right supports for people with disabilities and creating the right culture of communication.”

The right support

Dermody has the full support of her line manager at Revenue and is provided with an Irish Sign Language (ISL) interpreter at all team meetings.

“This means I’m able to converse, interact and engage. The conversation flows naturally because I can express myself. Without an ISL interpreter, it would be challenging in a group environment to engage effectively,” she says. 

“I can lip read in one-to-one meetings, but, in a group setting, it is much more difficult because I am trying to keep track of everything around me.”

This practical support also helps to foster a sense of inclusion and allows Dermody’s colleagues to benefit from the full scope of her skills and expertise as a Chartered Accountant. 

“I haven’t always had a positive experience at work. A few years ago, I worked with a small firm in private practice, and I found it very challenging,” she says.

“At team meetings with colleagues, there was no interpreter present, so I found it hard to understand the messages my colleagues were communicating. 

“We would be sitting together around a table and people beside me would be chatting and looking at their notes, so I wasn’t able to lip read. 

“I was the only Deaf person and felt I couldn’t make the role work for me, because of the lack of support in the environment.

“With Revenue, my experience has been completely different and so—to all employers—I would say, ‘be an ally, listen and work together with the individual, because everyone has different needs’. 

“My husband is Deaf too, but his level of hearing is different which means he can use the phone, whereas I can’t, but we have the same preference to have an ISL interpreter at meetings. 

“At the same time, another person who has the same level of hearing as me might prefer to use captions. Different people have different preferences, needs and accommodations and that is why it is so important to talk, to ask questions, to listen and respond to the individual.” 

Maeve’s story

Dermody grew up on a farm in Mullinalaghta, Co. Longford, with four older brothers. “One of my brothers has a hearing loss and I am profoundly Deaf, so we have both had very different experiences. I went to a Deaf school and he went to a mainstream school.

“I grew up seeing him progressing a few years ahead of me—going to college and getting a job. I thought, ‘I’m going to grow up and I’ll do the same because he’s been able to do it’.”

At first, Dermody set her sights on becoming a primary school teacher. “I went to a Deaf school in Dublin and I knew that St Patrick’s College offered a teacher training course in Deaf education. That’s what I wanted to do,” she says.

Dermody discovered, however, that she couldn’t apply for a place on the course because the Deaf school she had attended had not taught Irish as a subject at either primary or secondary level. 

This meant she did not have Irish as a Leaving Certificate subject—a requirement for primary teaching in Ireland.

“I didn’t have the option of doing my primary teacher training in Ireland. I could have gone over to the UK, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to study here and be close to family and friends,” she says.

Instead, she decided on a different career path; one that would allow her to use her strength in maths and interest in business to become a post-primary teacher.

College life

Dermody embarked on a degree in accountancy and finance at Dublin City University (DCU) in 2008 followed, three years later, by a professional diploma in education and a master’s in education. She is a qualified secondary school teacher, specialising in accounting and business studies. 

Dermody’s college experience was positive, but it was also a new and unfamiliar environment.

“When you’re in a Deaf school, it’s a bit like being in a bubble. You know all the teachers and everyone uses sign language. We had very small classes of just two to six pupils,” she says.

She was the only pupil in her class to do the Leaving Certificate. “I had always wanted to go on to third level, meet people and socialise,” she explains. 

“College is very new and different though when you’re coming from a Deaf school. You can feel a bit lost, but I was determined to roll up my sleeves and integrate.”

As well as forming close bonds with her collegemates at DCU, and forging lifelong friendships, Dermody made use of the supports offered to Deaf students, including ISL interpreters and note-takers for college lectures.

“I started to teach and I enjoyed it, but found myself wanting more from my working life. I’ve always been a problem-solver, so I started thinking instead about pursuing a career in accountancy,” she says.

Dermody’s next port-of-call was AHEAD, the independent non-profit organisation working to create inclusive environments in education and employment for people with disabilities.

“AHEAD is a really good organisation and they provide a lot of support in the workplace, both to the person with a disability and to the employer,” she says.

Through AHEAD’s Willing Able Mentoring (WAM) programme for graduates with disabilities, Dermody secured two paid work internships with ESB and the Civil Service.

“I started applying for jobs when I completed my internships, but I wasn’t having much luck. I decided that I needed more qualifications under my belt, so I started studying to become a Chartered Accountant,” she says.

“As an organisation, Chartered Accountants Ireland was every bit as supportive as DCU, organising ISL interpreters and anything else I needed.

“It was only when I started applying for jobs, both after graduating from DCU and completing my CA training, that I started to feel different. I could see my peers, who had similar grades but no disability, getting jobs. I wasn’t getting those same opportunities.”

Path to experience

To gain the experience she needed, Dermody took a part-time paid position with Reach Deaf Services.

“That was a good start for me, and I was able to apply for other jobs while I worked there.” Eventually, Dermody was offered a fixed-term accountancy position and, from there, she joined St. Joseph’s School for Deaf Boys in Dublin as an accounts administrator.

“I also started working as an administrative accountant with Deaf Village Ireland and the Sign Language Interpreting Service. I was working three different jobs, all fixed-term, but I wanted more security.”

That was when Dermody decided to apply for work with the Civil Service and was offered her first position with Revenue.

Government supports

Even though her experience of working in the public sector has been overwhelmingly positive, Dermody would like to see greater emphasis at Government level on the provision of practical work-related supports for people with disabilities in Ireland.

“I think the Irish government should look to the UK model of providing supports for people with disabilities. The Access to Work scheme there provides people with a disability with funding at an individual level, to help support them in the workplace,” she says.

“This means the employer doesn’t have to be concerned about the cost of providing this support. The person with a disability receives the funding and the employer then confirms that the funding has been used.”

On the other side of the coin, Ireland is better than the UK in terms of access for people with disabilities in social spaces. 

“I would also like to see Irish Sign Language (ISL) included in the school curriculum in Ireland. ISL is one of our three official languages, yet it is not taught in our schools,” says Dermody.

“If Irish Sign Language were on the curriculum alongside Irish and English, it would help to give people a basic understanding of sign language. That would make it easier to converse with Deaf people, even just through simple, everyday expressions like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.”