Mr. Robbie Sinnott:

On the voting issue, I took a High Court case in which I was successful, but it has generally only just begun even on independent voting. Ultimately, we would be looking at an Estonia-type online voting, but it seems there is no appetite for that. There is no engagement on it, which is the worst thing.

In terms of political participation, Article 29 of CRPD, to go back to the basic routes here, if a blind person wants to go to the constituency office of the local Deputy or councillor, he or she will not be able to find it and cannot do it independently. With approximately 80% unemployment, blind people will not be able to afford to get a taxi there. I know things have improved somewhat with Covid-19, but previously many people wanted eye-to-eye contact. It was not the blind people necessarily, who would be happy enough with the telephone, but the politicians themselves. Even starting with that basic connection, we have had experience of that down through the years and we have raised it with party leaders. At the same time, the very basic problem for visually impaired people is the fact that a lot of the information is not accessible. How can one participate in planning consultations with the local authority, for example, or in anything else if one cannot read, and does not know, what is out there?