Ms Alannah Murray:

I thank members for allowing me the opportunity to speak at this meeting. Before I talk about my experiences on transport, I will speak a little about myself to put a face to the statistics. First and foremost, I am an award-winning filmmaker. My documentary on disability in the screen media industry toured the festival circuit and finished its festival run with an award. Another one of my films recently premiered in Portugal and was also nominated for an award. I am a TEDx speaker and I am fluent in Irish. I am about to graduate with a BA honours degree in film and television production and I have my eyes set on a master's programme. I and many others like me are the future of this country. Despite these impressive attributes, I cannot board a bus of my own free will. I am forced give details about where I will be, what time I will be there and what time I intend returning.

Maybe I would not mind if the system worked but it does not work. Time and again, I and others like me are let down by this deeply flawed and unrealistic system.

I am 21 years old. At that age I should be allowed to be spontaneous. I should be free to hop on a bus and explore our country, a country whose Constitution was built on the idea of freedom and equality. When did we stray so far from the visions of our forefathers? I would not be seated here today in front of the committee if this was a country of freedom and equality.

Even when jumping through all these transportation hoops, the system continues to let me down. Last year alone, I would say I was let down by our transport system over 20 times. I have missed out on business meetings that could have secured a job for me. I have had to miss appointments because I have showed up for my pre-booked bus only to be told that there has been a mis-communication and I will be unable to travel as the bus has not been properly adapted to allow me onto it. The bus has to be adapted to let me onto it. It is not completely accessible. I have missed out on valuable opportunities to spend time with my friends, leaving me isolated from them and ultimately cutting me off from the wider world. I cannot begin to describe the emotions that go through one's body when one is seated at a crowded bus stop and a driver has to step out to say that one cannot travel simply because one has a disability. This has happened time and again. One is seated there and sees the crowds of people whispering to each other. Sympathetic looks are exchanged. Then the bus pulls away and one is left there alone, feeling like one is nothing.

Then there is the email one has to send to let one's prospective business partner, employer, friend or whoever know that one will be unable to attend the pre-arranged meeting. Who is going to salvage my reputation when I am labelled "unreliable", when I am unable to get a job and am forced to feed into the stereotype that people with disabilities do not work or when I am cut off from the rest of society because the thought of getting a bus is too much for me and I decide I am better off staying home? I am too young to feel this jaded by a system that can be fixed. We are fighting, but we cannot do it alone.

There are people who try their best to help. I have had bus drivers put themselves at risk to lift me onto buses because they refuse to accept the broken system and they are committed to ensuring I reach the destination of the journey I pre-booked 24 hours in advance. There are people like Kieran Delaney and Senator John Dolan who will stop at nothing until people with disabilities are given the rights they deserve. Kieran has had to make telephone calls to ensure I do not get stranded in Dublin because of a grievous error that has never been my fault. One night I sat in Busáras and I was told I would not be travelling but that the company would try to accommodate me on the next bus. The next bus came and it could not accommodate me and the same happened with the next one that came. It was getting dark and I was genuinely concerned I would not make it home. I wondered what I would do. I checked hotels but everywhere was fully booked. I was terrified that I would end up stranded or abandoned with no way home. That is the reality of the system.

Then there are the times when I have got onto the bus and there have been no clamps. The drivers offer to put my chair in the cargo hold when I transfer into a seat. That is well and good because I am able to do that, but I should not have to. I should not have to risk my chair being put in the cargo hold where it could be broken. If my chair gets broken I automatically become helpless and dependent, and I assure the committee I am neither helpless nor dependent. Do the members think this is acceptable in Ireland in 2018?

My life is complicated enough without having to chew anxiously on my fingernails, wondering whether I will be able to make my pre-booked journey. It is a journey I am forced to book in advance because people with disabilities are an afterthought in the system. I admire the introduction of the four-hour plan, but it is not enough. The 24-hours notice for a bus journey is not enough. Public transport should not be a human rights issue, but in its current form it is. What is it going to take for the system to take account of the plight of people with disabilities when using the service and to implement change properly? How many more people are going to give up and be forced to become isolated, wards of a system that is exclusionary and ultimately dangerous? I reject the idea that I should have to book my journey. I reject being in any way different from the committee members or their colleagues. They do not have to book transport in advance so why should I?

There must be no more being left on the side of the road, no more having to call in favours just to get home, no more missed opportunities, no more feeling like a burden for wanting to live independently in society and no more discrimination against people with disabilities. Fixing this system is a lot easier than having me to contend with. Enough is enough.