Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Higgins and Deputy Cairns for yielding their speaking slot to me. I thank the witnesses for their powerful contributions. My resolution every week is that we come into the public meeting and I then go into the Seanad and call for a debate on the matters raised at this committee because it is really important and valuable.

My first question is for Mr. Kerr. This committee exists to ensure the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities across all Government and State. He raised very good criteria for looking for value for money. Perhaps the committee should write to the Committee of Public Accounts to ask if the criteria are fit for purpose in light of the points that have been made here this morning. That is something we should talk about.

I was going to ask Mr. Sinnott to speak about his High Court case and outline what he would like the committee to do to advance the ability to vote and access to exercising the franchise.

Ms Emilie Conway spoke about transcendence. Senator Conway attended this meeting and for me, he is the embodiment of transcendence. Most of the rest of us stand up and hold notes as we contribute to debates in the Seanad. Senator Conway stands up and speaks off the top of his head with passion, knowing his subject matter extremely well. He is the embodiment of ability and transcendence and maybe calls out a prejudice or a stereotype.

This brings me to my main point. Everything that Ms Conway, Ms Ó Brolcháin Carmody and Ms Daffy have said has been pointing to ableist privilege.

We need a national conversation on the latter. If I use the word "racism", everybody understands exactly what I mean unless they choose to be ignorant or particularly right-wing. Everybody understands what it means. We, as a society, have made a seismic shift away from what was the case when I was a child in the context of things that are acceptable to say or even to think. This is to be welcomed. Everybody knows this. This clearly has not happened with regard to disabilities. It clearly has not happened in so far as that we content ourselves with the Equal Status Act, the Disability Act and the Employment Equality Act. We think the nine protected categories ensure that people have access to make a complaint where they are discriminated against but this does not call out the pervasive ableist discrimination in everything. This is the massive message I am getting from the meeting this morning. This is what I will call for in the Seanad.

We need to find a way to change the culture. We need to change everything in a way. The micromanagement of people with visual impairment is horrific. I am appalled listening to it. In previous engagements, I have been appalled by what I have heard about life experiences. This is all the more reason policy and everything should be through the life experience of those we are targeting and not from the top down. That is enough from my soap box except that I would welcome hearing what the witnesses have to say. In my role on this committee and personally, I am committed to tackling ableist privilege and to making sure we do this and make it a theme of our raison d'êtreas a committee and otherwise.