Ms Elaine Grehan:

I thank the Senator for her question and for her comment about seeing interpreters on the screen. Sadly, there is no interpreter for the 9 p.m. news, the 1 p.m. news or the 6 p.m. news. I know it is a positive start and hopefully it will lead to full access and better inclusion in society so that when one watches TV or the news there is access for the deaf community, similar to the Irish language news which is on at the moment. Sometimes when there is an interpreter it is not put on the main RTÉ news channel but it is on RTÉ News Now. We would like to see that on the mainstream channel, rather than being moved to a separate channel and almost hidden.

When children's schools were being closed due to the coronavirus, that was big news on the TV and it meant that so many children were home-schooled. RTÉ's "Home School Hub" was set up and we had to ask RTÉ to provide an ISL interpreter for that show, which it agreed to. It was important that families educating at home could include all their children in watching the same programme, whether they were hearing or deaf. That is another example of how we can encourage inclusion. Rather than segregating ISL provision to a separate channel, it should be mainstreamed.

We work with the BAI and the representative there and I am constantly advocating. I would love it if there was someone who worked in the BAI who fully understood everything because sometimes one can feel as though one is going around in circles. It would be useful to have a deaf representative within the BAI.