Ms Kerry Lawless:

I wanted to add to the point other people were making about exhaustion. Ms Newman mentioned paying a GP €50 or €60 to sign a form. I used to work for the Irish Trade Union Trust and the National Adult Literacy Agency, NALA, so I know my way around this system. If I am exhausted, how exhausted are people who are further distanced again, who do not know the system and did not know it before they acquired a disability, and whose families were not connected?

To respond to the Senator's point about dyslexia, we all think in different ways and have different talents. I got my dyslexia diagnosis in my 30s, when I was working, and I paid for it privately. That is the reality for most adults with dyslexia or any other sort of neurodiversity. To get access to the supports, you need a diagnosis, and to get the diagnosis, very often you have to pay privately. There are still people, therefore, with reading and writing difficulties, whether dyslexia or ADHD, who have those issues but have no way of proving that, so they cannot access the services. This financial barrier is in place. For example, I needed a letter from an ear, nose and throat, ENT, doctor to confirm my hearing impairments. I spent four years waiting in the public system. If I had been an undergraduate, I would have had to go through my entire degree without that piece of paper that confirms my impairment, which would have meant I could not have gotten the supports and services on offer because I could not afford to go private to get the letter that confirmed my diagnosis or to get the tests that led to that diagnosis. All of this has to be reconsidered.

The Senator asked whether there is one quick fix. Other people are better qualified to answer that question than I am, but for me it relates to social welfare. It should be a matter of building in flexibilities, recognising that people with disabilities have higher costs of living, letting them retain their payments and secondary benefits and letting them get back to education, training and employment. They should not be penalised in the way Ms Newman has been penalised.