Ms Jacqui Browne:

Yes. I will try to be brief. There is so much I could say and offer, in addition to the other members and colleagues from Inclusion Ireland and the DFI. I want to remind people of something that has been forgotten about, especially in today's discussions where we talked a good deal about the service provision. We are losing sight of disabled people as individuals and their direct participation in life but also in the implementation of policies and strategies. For too long in this country we have operated in silos. That is one of our core barriers generally. We saw some very good examples of how we broke down silos when it came to resolving many issues around homelessness during the Covid pandemic. For example, very few people who were homeless died because of Covid. That was as a result of partnership in terms of breaking down silos. I urge the members of this Joint Committee on Disability Matters to not forget to take the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, as their mapping and overarching policy tool. There are only 50 articles in the convention. I urge the members to lead and not impede. In particular, I urge them to look at Article 1, the opening article, which speaks about how disabled people are at the heart of the convention. We should be doing nothing without the direct involvement and representative voice of disabled people and not have others speaking on their behalf. That is very important.

Equally, Article 4 talks not only about the participation of disabled people but also the prioritisation of the voice and the lived experience of disabled people in decision-making and in planning, implementation and strategy. Those are two critical points for the committee to take on board when it is discussing the future and championing the rights of disabled people under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I hope that helps.