Irish Deaf Society: We are disappointed to announce that HANDS ON will not continue this year (2014). This is disappointing news and means less Irish Sign Language will be on Irish TV.
RTE has decided to cut this programme after 18 years and try out some new ideas. We have been told that they are giving the programme a break for one year to try new ideas.
RTE is planning to advertise soon to make a new programme to be shown in 2015 (open to all production companies)
They also plan to show two documentaries (1 in 2014 and 1 in 2015) about Deaf and Hard of Hearing people – We have asked for more information about this.
IDS attends the annual Access Meeting every year (will be held in September). If you have any comments, you can leave them here or email us at [email protected] and we will bring all your questions and comments to RTE about the Hands On Decision.
Or if you would like to contact RTE yourself, you can email [email protected] (for the attention of the GENRE Dept)
We would like to thank Mind The Gap for all their work with Hands On (and Sign of The Times and SignUp!) They were groundbreaking with hiring in Deaf staff (Deaf Presenters, Deaf Producers, Deaf Directors, Deaf Researchers, etc). They also hold regular production meetings with all their Deaf staff to think of new ideas for their programmes which shows how much Deaf input goes into their programmes by the Deaf community. The cancelling of Hands On is a big loss to the Deaf community.