Ms Kerry Lawless:

Assistive technology and I are perhaps not the best fit. In terms of this issue, again, I can only talk about my experience. I think the committee needs to talk to a wider group of students at third level, particularly at postgraduate level.

For me, the issue is quite basic. I have been out of the workforce for quite a while. Things have moved on. Yes, I can manage a computer and use Microsoft Word but there are a lot of basic skills I do not have and there is a presumption at third level that people have these skills. However, there is no provision to bridge that gap. If I was to meet the assistive technology officer in the disability services of a university, I would be told this and that is available, look at this app or YouTube video and do this and that. I would have no idea what they were talking about. I am more than capable in my area, which is science and health communications. I am more than capable of doing things like that but I do not know how to operate much of the assistive technology. The disability services do not necessarily have the funding for the staff to give me the sort of support and training I need to bring me from where I am to where the supports are available. That is one big issue. There can be issues when someone tries to access those supports.

I am not making this up, in case anyone thinks I am, but I had this conversation yesterday. I found a part-time course in my local area of Finglas in Dublin 11 to do basic IT and improve my skills. I am on the invalidity pension so there are no fees. It is very hard to find these part-time courses because, again, even at FETAC levels 4, 5 and 6, they tend to be full-time. The course had already started and I asked if I could go along. The answer was "Yes" but I was told the only seats they had available were at the back and asked if that was a problem for me. I said it would be a problem because I have visual and hearing issues and asked if there was any way I could sit at the front. I was told all the seats at the front were gone and that I would have to wait until September. I asked whether we could change the seats around and see if somebody was willing to move for me. The person to whom I was speaking was a very nice, helpful woman. She was not being difficult. She told me that they had set up the seating, everybody's work was on his or her computer and the only seats available were at the back of the room. She asked why I was not put down for the course in September. I am not particularly IT literate but even I know it is a 15-minute job to take somebody's work off a computer, keep it clean, protect the person's privacy and transfer it to another computer.

If people are coming up against those sorts of barriers, how on earth are we expected to survive at third level, again with apps and so forth? That is one area in which there is an institutional and cultural issue. There is an expectation when someone says "reasonable accommodations" but they are not actually that reasonable at all.

The second point I mention is that if a student in a university is looking for higher tech assistive technology, the particular third level institution may or may not have the funding for it. It varies widely. Other people will have different issues but for me, the biggest issue is that I need to bridge the gap, even for the IT that is there. I need someone to show me how to use it. It is no good telling me I have been set up on a transcribing service and off I go. They may as well be giving me a JCB and telling me to get in and drive it away. I am more likely to get on the JCB and give it a go but I am not going to do that with transcribing.

Again, that this is all negotiated is a huge issue for me. I was told at one stage I was not entitled to a scribe to help with, say, assignments, writing funding applications or research ethics. I was only entitled to a scribe to work on my thesis. Again, I thought: "What? Is writing not writing?". If I need support with writing, does it matter what element of writing it is as part of the academic programme? When you do a postgrad or PhD, you do not only write a thesis. You write to get research ethics. You write to submit papers and hope to get them published. You write funding applications. You write emails and updates and you give presentations. However, I was told the scribe was only available for the actual words that were going to go into my thesis. As members can tell, I am fairly mouthy and fairly able to stand my ground, and yet I was asking "What?". Luckily, I happened to know another PhD student who said that is not true at all and that I should go back to them and say A, B and C. You have to go back and say A, B and C because the system is set up that you are looking for reasonable accommodations and you are negotiating every part of it. That includes something as simple as automated transcription and a scribe.

It should just be that for what students need, they ask for it, prove their eligibility for it, get it and get trained in how to use it. It should not be this way where every single student has to negotiate for every single thing. I am sure other people have stories of how easily it worked, how well it worked for them and how all their needs were met, but my couple of examples are of how easy it is for things not to work. It should not be like that. As I said, these are simple changes that could be made about how the fund for students with disabilities is set up.