John Dolan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and her officials for attending. My singular focus in the Oireachtas is on people with disabilities. In Europe, there are 80 million people with disabilities. The EU, in a very novel act as a non-state party, signed and ratified the UN convention in 2010 or thereabouts. Within its own competencies, it is signed up to delivering on the convention.

I hope and trust that later today the Dáil will be supporting the Government in ratifying the convention. We are the last country in Europe to ratify it and I am very confident that we can stride ahead quite strongly at this stage.

In terms of the future of Europe, it is important to remember that the European Union grew out of the awfulness of the Second World War, beginning with the European Coal and Steel Community and so forth. The same is true of the United Nations. The EU and the UN are two of the good things that came out of that awfulness. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 promised human rights to everybody on the basis that they are human beings. Almost 60 years later, the UN had to announce the need for a convention to make this happen for people with disabilities. That says to us that we did not really get it under our skin that people with disabilities were equally to be honoured in their humanity as other people have been. I know from my work in different states and my involvement with the European Disability Forum, the European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities and others that there are legacy issues across Europe. We cannot take it for granted that people with disabilities are going to be properly and well dealt in to the future of Europe and every state within it. Therefore, we have to take very specific measures both at home and across the EU. Poverty, exclusion and loss of hope are the three hallmarks of disability in Europe and elsewhere, regardless of whether one is talking about a well-off or a very poor state. There may be variations in that but these still persist. The multi-annual funding framework, the EU semester and the future of Europe debate are key instruments but how can we make sure that they are used to assist and focus on people with disabilities and their families?

I am concerned about a range of issues relating to Brexit. As things move on, I am seeking reassurance and verifiable evidence that people with disabilities and their interests are being addressed regarding issues of serious concern such as cross-border movement, changes in regulations for items such as assistive technologies, pharmaceuticals and other medical products, service level agreements across borders, the loss of economies of scale in research into and treatment of rare diseases and so on. These concerns must be attended to within the context of the bigger project. On the issue of social cohesion and security, there is an old fashioned way of thinking about security and threats, namely, that they come from outside one's territory. It is a spatial notion, that one could be invaded in some way. However, we have enough evidence now that some threats come from how we treat people in our own states. Often the revolution starts internally. In terms of social cohesion, overtly dealing with people with disabilities and people from different socio-economic backgrounds can help to give a good foundation to a society and make it one that people will want to defend and promote. We must see security as something we can control by having good public interest programmes and the inclusion of people. We must ensure that people are not left on the edges and marginalised and this applies beyond people with disabilities.

I thank the Minister of State for attending today.