Katherine Zappone (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Guinan for the presentation and I congratulate her and wish her the best. I am delighted to see that she has a background in education and experience at the coalface. In my family life, in the past year and a half, I have begun to deal with the issue of coping with disability and I can see very clearly how far we have to go on priorities in the strategic plan. Ms Guinan mentioned the disability strategy, living independently in the community and universal design of the environment. Progress on universal design of the environment will impact significantly on whether we can progress the notion of living independently in the community. The concepts are very much connected. Can Ms Guinan comment further on universal design? Does a centre operate to produce standards and so on? Are efforts being made to reach out to industry and those working in this area on the matter of universal design? In my experience technology relating to sight loss is way behind and I hope the industries in this area are working towards improvements.