Mr. Chris Hoey:

I thank members for their questions. I will give a general response and I will ask my colleagues to give a more detailed reply.

Senator Burke made some very relevant points on numbers. Unfortunately, there are no hard facts and figures. The local census will tell us that approximately 11% of the population have a physical disability of some sort, but the figure is not broken down between people who use wheelchairs and those who do not. Similarly, there is no census figures that we can use reliably to determine isolation, but from our local intelligence, we tend to know the pockets and the number of people, and we have local responses for local issues. We are trying to speak to the Central Statistics Office about how to reflect this in future censuses, but I am sure there are a hundred different groups asking the CSO to add different questions to the survey. This committee may be able to help us in that regard.

the level of engagement with the local authorities is increasing. There are access committees in most local authority areas and we have a seat on most access committees of the local authorities. We are talking about systemic change and it is not for me to say that X council is brilliant but Y council is not. It is a case of raising everybody up to the highest level. Unfortunately we still have personality driven approaches. In the councils where we have the best interaction it is because somebody has a personal experience of disability. We want to raise awareness of these issues to such a point that it does not matter whether people have personal experience, but that it becomes ingrained in what they do, that access and accessibility is a right of every member of society. I will ask Mr. Vijoy Chakraborty to give an example of how we are planning for the long-term future by making an input before people qualify as architects or occupational therapists. There is a number of initiatives which Mr. Chakraborty will develop.

With regard to the points made by Senator van Turnhout on claims that buildings are fully accessible, that is something we deal with on a daily basis. It is not that business is trying to pull the wool over anybody's eyes. It is that the people who are making the claims do not really understand what the term "fully accessible" means. That is one of the reasons for this document. It is an issue that requires systemic change. It is not that IWA wants to be held up as the best, the IWA wants to inform and come up with access solutions and advice. IWA wants to develop a facility where it does not matter whether one has a local sweet shop or a bank with an ATM, one can call IWA and somebody from a local centre can give the business objective and straightforward advice.

We can also provide solutions, as some solutions to accessibility are very inexpensive. It is just about thinking outside the box and so on.

Hospitals have been mentioned and I commented on legacy issues. There are very few new hospitals around the country. I live in Cavan and the hospital there was built in the late 1980s or early 1990s; I used to work there. There are accessibility issues with that location, and it is one of the newer hospitals. Would the 2014 standards be applied to a 1990 build? We have a piece of work in tackling the legacy pieces, not just in hospitals but across society. Ms Murphy will address the issue of private rented accommodation. Deputy Catherine Byrne made some very relevant points and I am glad she is going to support the call for a tax incentive and so on. Mr. Chakraborty will speak to how we are systemically trying to change and refer to the Dublin Airport Authority and a specific piece of influential work. We will take up every offer and we can do an access audit of every constituency office.