Ms Jacqui Browne:

I thank Senator O'Loughlin for her questions. I will very briefly remind members, as we referenced in the opening statement, that back in February, the Disabled Persons Organisation, DPO, Network sent the committee a reasonably detailed letter outlining what we presume is helpful as clarity in terms of definitions and terminology with regard to the distinction between DPOs and service providers, which has already been spoken about by all of us today. We offered very clear distinctions and that is really important going forward.

More substantially, however, I would be concerned that coming out of today, the committee might place an undue emphasis on the value of disability awareness exercises and funding disability awareness. I will be extremely honest here and I suppose I am speaking personally. I am retired now. I worked as a disability equality consultant for more than 40 years in a self-employed capacity. I did a huge amount of work around supporting disability awareness and equality training. I would really question the value of delivering or undertaking awareness-raising exercises unless they are tied to a specific expected outcome or behaviour one is trying to address or change. Therefore, just going off and delivering a set ofPowerPoint slides, whether it is by disabled people or not, is not awareness raising. We really need to get our heads around what the purpose is. Why do we want to throw buckets of money at raising awareness unless it is tied to a specific task, objective or, ultimately, a change in behaviour, be that around how committees work or how a public participation network, PPN, might work and how it involves people? We must link it to a direct expected outcome.