Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses also for their very powerful words. The one thing all of us on this committee have to make sure we do is to listen and make policies to help. That is our mission. It is something we need to do.

I wish everyone a happy International Women's Week. It is important. The first thing that hit me when I read the statements was the violence against disabled women. We need to ask Tusla to provide a categorised database to show disabled women's experience. Funding has a major part to play in that but we need to do that because it is very important.

When we speak about political life we must highlight that there are not enough representatives in elected office. What can we do to encourage that and engage more? One of the witnesses might come back to me on that.

All of us are hearing about BreastCheck and CervicalCheck. It is very important that disabled women do not have to ask for supports such as a hoist. It should be standard. Working with the HSE it is very important that there is communication and information. That should be available. We do not want women to say that was not available to them and describe how bad they felt. That is something on which we need to work. Those are issues we need to address.

I refer to the absence of disabled voices. We need to include all voices and listen, particularly to what women are saying, but I was sad to hear Ms McGovern say that when people are not listening it can affect mental health. She might come back to me on mental health and the way that has impacted the witnesses. I know it has been hard but Covid-19 in particular has been extremely hard on people's mental health. The witnesses might come back to me on that.

When we are launching programmes we need to get more women involved. It is very important that with policies and us working as two different groups we learn and make sure that we deliver on policies that will affect women.

Do the witnesses believe it would be helpful to have a disabled person at the decision making level in all local government? I believe that will be very important and it is something we need to examine. I was a councillor before I became a Senator and a Deputy and whether it was working through local grants, housing adaptation grants or whatever grants were available, it was payments being means tested. That was brought up today and I would be very worried about that. No payments should be means tested. That is an issue we need to address.

One of the statements that summed everything up was that disabled women can fully realise their social, cultural, political and economic rights. That is what we have to do here. All of us have a duty of care and it is something on which I believe we need to deliver. I again thank the witnesses. The meeting, and the presentations, were excellent. They might come back to me with some answers.