Mr. Gary Lee:

I am looking for a pay rise. Mr. McCabe has asked me to go through the CIL presentation.

The CIL was established in Ireland 21 years ago by people with disabilities. Today, it is still governed by people with disabilities for people with disabilities. The CIL's motto is "Nothing about us, without us". In other words, people with disabilities should have a say in decisions that affect people with disabilities. They should be consulted at all times and be centre stage in terms of taking decisions that will affect their lives. There are 19 centres for independent living throughout the State, involving 7,000 people with disabilities.

However, while a person's home offers safety, warmth and a good environment to live in, it cannot be and should not be the person's complete world. Our lives and family lives are not solely determined by our home. Independence and inclusion in our own community is a measure of a fully engaged life for people with disability, as it is for everybody.

We could have written this, but we did not. This is a direct quotation from a report published in June 2011, entitled Time to Move on from Congregated Settings: A Strategy for Community Inclusion. This HSE report was done by the working group on congregated settings.

The HSE is talking the talk on the one hand and, on the other, it is doing what it is doing. Statements in major reports like this one are great, but what happens on the ground? The very services that enable inclusion and independence are not being expanded to meet needs that have already been assessed and to tackle waiting lists. Instead, existing services that people with disabilities depend upon to enable them to be active participants in the community are being cut.

We have heard that, due to complex legal issues, Departments have been considering their position in recent years. We cannot understand how the decision was made or why it was announced when it was on a Tuesday evening the week before last. I have discussed this matter with many of the people who are directly affected. Many of our members are upset and frightened. They are the same people from whom the Government tried to remove personal assistant services in September. Many of those in receipt of personal assistant services are also in receipt of the allowance and the grant. By and large, the people in receipt of the grants have fixed incomes.

Today, a girl asked me to raise her case with the committee. She is called Rachel and she lives in Raheny. Rachel is a wheelchair user who must take oxygen. Although she lives in Raheny, which is in Dublin, she cannot access public transport. If she goes to get a bus, she cannot wait outside for very long, because doing so affects her lungs. She has tried public transport, but sometimes she has needed to wait 20 minutes or half an hour for a properly accessible bus to come along. One or two buses with ramps might arrive, but those ramps might not work.

If it is a Tuesday and ramps are only fixed on a Monday, it would be out of action for the next few days.

Even in Dublin people rely on both the allowance and the grant. Rachel is a university student in her 20s and the college will provide transport to bring her to and from the campus. However, if she wants to carry out additional research for her course, the transport she takes must come from her mobility allowance. The mobility allowance is also there to enable her to meet friends, and she has told me she likes to go to Blanchardstown and the cinema. She likes to do the things everybody likes to do and especially girls her age. The mobility allowance gives her the independence to do that. Her father's vehicle has been adapted in a process facilitated by the motorised transport grant. Without the allowance and the grant, Rachel will effectively be confined to her home and unable to participate fully in society. She has much to offer society.

We have considered the legal complexities. I will throw one of these out there. Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities indicates: "States parties to this convention recognise the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others, and shall take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right and their full inclusion and participation in the community." Some 127 countries have ratified this UN convention since March 2006. We have known for several years prior to this and for close to a decade, as the State was involved in representations relating to the convention, that we would sign the convention.