Ms Catherine Lane:

The National Women’s Council welcomes the invitation to speak to the committee and present at this sitting celebrating disabled women on International Women's Day. We highlight the need for other Oireachtas committees to have dedicated sessions on the impact of Covid-19 on all women.

The National Women's Council is Ireland’s leading women’s representative organisation. We seek full equality for all women and draw our mandate from a membership of more than 190 groups and organisations from a diversity of backgrounds, sectors and locations. We have been working collectively with disabled women since March last year on many equality issues, such as inclusion and the visibility of disabled women and their experiences across the work of our organisation and also within the wider women’s movement. We felt it was important that today, two disabled women from the group and representing our group member the Independent Living Movement Ireland, Maureen McGovern and Selina Bonnie, would address the committee directly. We also look forward to listening to Amy Hassett and Maria Ní Fhlatharta from Disabled Women Ireland.

We look forward to engaging with and further supporting the work of the committee in any way we can and wish all members a happy International Women's Day.