Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all of our witnesses for their attendance today. They have given compelling, passionate and personal statements and for me, the lived experience is the best tool when it comes to shaping and updating public policy. I thank them all for the role they are playing in doing that. I also wish all of the witnesses and my colleagues a happy international women's week.

I was struck by a comment made by Ms McGovern about feeling under-represented at a political level. I assure her and all of the witnesses that all of us in this Chamber, from all sides of the political divide, are united in this committee when it comes to progressing issues for disabled people. I give them that assurance of our support and willingness to build links with them.

We are pressed for time and I would like to hear more from the witnesses. I have a number of questions related to specific points they have raised. Ms Bonnie, with whom I have worked on South Dublin County Council and who is a force to be reckoned with, spoke about the need to expand the assisted human reproduction Bill to cater for disabled people. I would love to hear a little more about what we could do, in practical terms, in that regard. She also spoke about the low screening uptake and barriers to accessing screening, for example, the lack of hoists. Beyond the provision of hoists, which I agree should be a basic requirement, is there anything else we could do to improve screening services for disabled people?

Ms McGovern spoke about violence, including sexual violence, against disabled women and argued that we should have some targeted initiatives to respond to and tackle that issue. I ask her to outline her ideas on what we should be including in our frameworks going forward. On a similar theme, Ms Hassett mentioned that not all gender-based services are accessible to people with disabilities and to disabled women in particular. I ask her to suggest a couple of remedies that would rectify that situation and improve accessibility. She also spoke about barriers to work. In December 2020, this committee celebrated the International Day of Persons with Disabilities and part of the theme we chose for that day was ability. A number of organisations appeared before the committee to share their experience of what it is like for disabled people in the workplace. This is an issue of which we are all cognisant and on which we really want to make an impact. In a previous role, before I was elected as a Deputy, I worked in that area on a couple of programmes. I tried to make sure the company I worked for was a diverse and inclusive employer that gave people of all abilities access to employment opportunities.

The remote working strategy recently published by the Tánaiste is going to be of huge benefit in terms of equipping people to ask for the opportunity to work from home. I ask the witnesses to respond to those questions. Ms Ní Fhlatharta made some very interesting points about scholarships and I am pleased to hear they are having an impact.