Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Higgins. Regarding the optional protocol, once we have submitted the report to the UN committee, I hope to bring back a timetable in my first engagement in the new year with this committee. On legislation, we are looking at a disability (miscellaneous provisions) Bill and at bringing a memorandum to the Government early next year for approval to prepare heads of Bill. We will move on from there in 2021. I take the Senator's point about the importance of disability-proofing across all Departments. I gave one example about having to engage with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform regarding a circular on the public service obligation. We should look at widening those to ensure that disability has been regarded in the statements of strategy, which all Departments are busily working on at present.

Regarding reasonable accommodation, remote working and the issue with the employment grant not being available in the public service, under the national disability inclusion strategy, my Department is creating a working group to look at assistive technology. That could be particularly significant. We may see a significant society-wide transition to working at home. That can only be to the benefit of persons with a disability whose home environment is probably already designed to cater for their particular needs. We can address issues regarding that.

I take the point regarding transition points. One of the goals in creating this Department is that, from cradle to grave, there is a seamless approach to the issue of disability by our Department. As the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, said, we will continue to follow up on that because we are very aware of it and there is significant pressure on services. We are working on hiring contact tracers whose sole job will be to do that. We need to get specialists away from doing that and back to their jobs.