Ms Emilie Conway:

What I was about to say was that three different scenarios can play out.

I would like to come back to what happens when somebody registers as self-employed because that is a minefield of mind-bending intricacies and barriers to which nobody seems to draw attention. In view of all this, it is very difficult to see how institutions can fulfil a public sector duty. Disabled artists will not engage because, as we know, in an industry famous for its precarity, it is too much of a risk to take a short-term contract or to engage for low pay and lose supports.

I have a vision. DADA has a vision. We believe art is visionary. Art could lead us into a more diverse and inclusive society. Art holds up a mirror to society. Why should audiences with disabilities attend art events if that mirror does not reflect their experience or who they are, how they are and who they could be? I ask the committee to imagine a world in which people with a disability were supported, not thwarted, to reach their full potential as contributing artists to Ireland's society. I ask the committee to imagine the colour, the energy, the joy, the power and the visionary transformation that that would bring to the arts in our society and how it would change people. It cannot happen under the present penalising system. The present system will only destroy artists with disabilities, stifle their voices and mangle their contributions.

People who have a disability or any visual impairment are not vision-impaired. In fact, because of our limitations, we constantly find creative ways to transcend them and we are full of vision and creativity. The pandemic forced non-disabled people to walk a mile in our restricted shoes and we did not stop hearing about how they struggled with that. As disabled people, we have learnt to accept our limitations but we should not have to accept the ableist systemic and structural barriers imposed on us that artificially limit and restrict our self-determination and our ability to participate and contribute in the arts, culture and broader society - every sector.

In a country where our economy is predicted to take off like a rocket, it is time to level the playing field for disabled people with non-disabled people. Core disability payments need to be a permanent, unconditional, secure support. It is time for us to thrive, just as all the committee members do. James Joyce was a disabled artist. If he had no patron and was instead reliant on precarious disability supports, even more precarious than art, and victimised by these conditions, do members think he would have had the creative energy to write Ulysses? It is worth the committee considering how much art is not created these days because disabled artists have to put up with these penalising and punishing conditions and how much art we do not hear of because, like Ms Ó Brolcháin Carmody said, so many are living like ghosts in our society, unable to come forward with what they do for fear. I thank all members and hope we progress with change.