Aisling Awards

Dermot Desmond, Caroline Casey, Danuta Gray and Denis O'Brien

NEWS RELEASE

Desmond, O’Brien and Gray Honoured at the O2 Ability Awards

Ireland, Dublin: Businessmen, Dermot Desmond and Denis O’Brien and O2 Ireland CEO, Danuta Gray, were last night (13 June 2007) presented with an Aisling Award at the annual O2 Ability Awards Show in Dublin Castle.

The Aisling Award recognises pioneering and visionary leadership in promoting the ability and value of people with disabilities. Aisling is the Gaelic word for dream or vision. The philosophy of the Aisling Foundation is that “you don’t need eyes to see; you need vision”. The recipients of the awards are key decision makers and leaders who harness their influence to change the way society sees disability.

Aisling Foundation founder and creator of the O2 Ability Awards, Caroline Casey, personally presented the Aisling Awards to the trio in recognition for their leadership, vision and support in energising the business community to embrace the disability business case.

“Dermot Desmond, Denis O’Brien and Danuta Gray deserve to be recognised for their individual and collective determination in bringing about not only the O2 Ability Awards programme, but for championing the case that the exclusion of people with disabilities no longer makes business sense. Without each of them, the O2 Ability Awards could not have happened. They stepped up when no one else would. They took the risk and had the vision to see what could be achieved when others couldn’t”, said Caroline Casey.

“Unlike AIDS, poverty or cancer, the disability issue does not have the support of necessary influential leaders who can drive and energise change. We need such leaders, people who are willing to use their influence to help resolve one of the world’s greatest problems, one that affects over 800 million people globally – the exclusion and inability for people with disabilities to self determine and achieve their individual potential”, added Casey.

www.theaislingfoundation.org

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