Dr. Joanne McCarthy:

I thank the committee for inviting us to participate in this debate. This is the second year in a row that we have participated and we will build on the submission that we made to the committee last year.

The DFI is a national support organisation that has a membership of 120 organisations, which span a range of small to large household organisations. Members can peruse our website to get a better understanding of what we do but we strive to do three main things: we support the development of organisations to provide good quality services; we are involved in forming and monitoring disability policies and procedures; and we support the participation of people with disabilities at local, national and international level.

Last year, when we were here we called for disability to be included as part of the equality budgeting process. We acknowledge the developments that have taken place since then. In particular, we acknowledge the establishment of the budgetary expert advisory group in September and the commitment that was made in budget 2019. I commend the committee and the Government for listening to us and implementing these things. However, I remind people about an earlier commitment by the State to keep in mind budgeting for people with disabilities. Under section 42 of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014, the State has a responsibility to ensure that public bodies take into account proactive and positive measures that affect people with disabilities. This is known as a public sector duty and extends to disability proofing budgets. We commend the developments that happened in 2018 but we see them more as delivering on the commitment to introduce disability proofing in the programme for Government. Obviously all of this must be put in the context of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, that was ratified by Ireland in 2018.

I will not refer to our key high-level goals for equality proofing in general because I am sure that the members, as a committee, know them. The DFI has taken the time to consider the commitments. In light of a report that was released today, we have taken a quick look to see what was formerly achieved. Even though we view the commitment to establish a working group and stitch disability into equality proofing measures as positives, we feel that what has been delivered falls significantly short of what should be achieved if one is going to disability proof budgets. My colleagues will probably highlight some of the key areas that they feel need further development. Ms O'Donovan will talk about the lack of ambition that exists when it comes to proofing disability specific stuff within health and when it goes out into other areas such as housing. Ms O'Donnell will talk about what disability proofing means in the context of poverty and social welfare.

I ask members to take a step back for a minute to consider who we are talking about when we talk about disability proofing for people with disabilities. Often when we talk about policy, there is a very different interpretation of the population at hand in legislative and budgetary terms. According to census 2016, more than 600,000 people or 13.5% of the population identified themselves as having a disability. When we talk about disability and disabled people we often zone in on people who receive services, predominantly from the disability services budget. It should be borne in mind that only 27,000 of the 630,000 people with disabilities in Ireland receive day services, of whom only 8,500 access residential services. When talking about disability proofing the budget, if we only consider disability proofing health budgets, and specifically disability budgets, that will fall significantly short of the population of disabled people in general. I encourage members to keep in mind that when they think of budgets, they must think beyond the 35,000 people in receipt of core disability services.