Ms Elaine Grehan:

I will stand as I make my opening statement so that the interpreter can see me clearly. I thank the members for inviting us here today. I am here with my colleagues Ms Lianne Quigley, chairperson of the board of management, and Mr. John Sherwin, who is the chief executive officer. I am the advocacy manager in the Irish Deaf Society, IDS. The Irish Deaf Society is a national deaf-led organisation, a cultural and linguistic minority. Our aims are to serve the best interests of deaf people and their welfare. The IDS is a recognised disabled people's organisation, DPO, under the UN CRPD.

We have the Irish Sign Language Act 2017 which states that deaf people have a right to access public services in their first language, which is Irish Sign Language, but it does not always happen. I wish to talk about Articles 29 and 30, which specifically address the deaf community. In Article 29, there are seven points I wish to explain. There are no deaf Members in the Dáil or Seanad. Recently three deaf people put themselves forward for public representation but were unsuccessful. I hope the three deaf people who did that will be role models to deaf people who may in future consider doing the same. Their experience was very challenging, with many barriers when putting themselves forward as public representatives, particularly with the additional burden of seeking interpreters and translation in different Government meetings, and accessing funding. There was a negative bias towards deaf people putting themselves forward as deaf representatives.

In regard to education, language, training and resources, the IDS encourages and empowers deaf people to make representation to Government organisations at national, regional and local levels.

In regard to voting, deaf people understand voting and elections but do not have Irish Sign Language access to watch political debates which happen during election time. Leaflets, information, posters and so forth are not accessible as they are all in English. When candidates go door to door canvassing, there is also the communication barrier at the front door. Many deaf people have a basic education due to the provision of education they received, so literacy levels can be low, which impedes access to information. In regard to the news and what is happening at election time, information about candidates or political parties, their manifestos, what policies they are promoting and so forth, there is much lengthy discussion on such matters. However, deaf people get only limited conversation and dialogue in the social arena on these. For example, they get limited information on the RTÉ News, they get just five minutes of information about what is happening rather than the longer dialogue other people receive. Deaf people therefore feel left out and excluded. They are language deprived from the information. They do not have a full knowledge of candidates and who would be best for them to vote for.

Local deaf clubs have invited Deputies to come to the clubs or to where deaf people gather. They would like to hear their political manifestos and their campaign but they do not always get access to that.

A recent survey for the DPO Coalition, of which IDS is one of the founding members, found that 24% of people with disability have difficulty in accessing their right to vote and that 55% have difficulty in contacting their local representative. The survey proves that the best way to improve the lives of deaf people is in one of two ways. Government should provide core funding to DPOs, for example, to do research to show the experience of deaf people, and fund the IDS to enable deaf people become more involved in political life. This survey will be published in the near future.

The IDS, as a DPO, has representation for the deaf community. However, it does not receive enough funding to link in with local government or on a local or national level. The Government has asked DPOs to consult different organisations, but we do not have the funding or the resources to enable us to do this. IDS recommends that the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth should take an active role in facilitating this consultation process with DPOs to get the information across to Government.

The IDS would like to see Government use and promote a social model of disability, as is recommended in the UNCRPD.

How do we make this social structure? We need to ask people with disabilities, not the other way around. It is not a disability issue; it is an equality issue. It is not a charity model or welfare we are looking for.

As for other points under Article 30, the Citizens Information Board, CIB, and sign language interpreting services are running a pilot project at the moment in terms of access to interpreting services for cultural, sporting and other such events. This is what was enacted in the ISL Act, so we expect to see the results of this and the deaf community's participation using this pilot project. We very much want to see it become a permanent structure within sign language interpreting services in order that we will have this model of providing interpretation. At the moment we are very much lacking in information on ISL and there not being enough interpreters. That creates additional barriers for deaf people in their cultural lives, attending museums and suchlike. Deaf people's choices in life are very limited. They have to plan long in advance of an event if they want to go to it and they have to have a lot of patience. They have to wait and then see what the choices they can access are. They are significantly disenfranchised compared with other hearing people. Grants are available to cultural organisations, but what we need to see in those grants is a stipulation that interpreter access must be provided because deaf people need to access services through ISL.

Oftentimes the media are not accessible to deaf people. There is a bigger focus on subtitling than on ISL. Subtitling is in English, and English is not the first language of the deaf community. As I mentioned earlier, many deaf people have literacy skills. Some are able to read subtitling really well and some are not, but the majority of deaf people would prefer ISL access. Sometimes you think subtitling will be there and you turn on the TV and it is not there. Subtitling is not reliable, and there is very sparse ISL programming provided. The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, insists on targets for broadcasters to meet, and subtitling is included in the provision for deaf people, but very often the subtitled programmes are just repeated at unsociable hours, meaning that the target is met in a distorted way. We know the quality of subtitling is unreliable and we may report this, yet it still goes ahead and the poor subtitled programmes are still included within the targets. There was a TV programme that was on called "Hands On". It was produced by Mind the Gap Films and RTÉ. It ran from 1985 right up until 2014. It had 18 seasons and then it stopped. IDS has pleaded with RTÉ that we would really like to see this specific deaf programme back on the air. Many of our people who are deaf were presenters who worked on that programme, on either the technical side or the presenting side. They ended up going abroad to pursue their careers because the programme ended.

I thank the committee for having me.