Ms Lianne Quigley:

I thank Senator Flynn for her questions. I fully agree with her when it comes to setting up a disabled persons quota, particularly in the Seanad. To have a deaf person or a person with a disability is important. A deaf person ran for election but, sadly, did not get elected. It is incredibly important to have that representation.

To go back to the point about the DPCN and DPO, the DPCN would include service providers within its meetings. There is a broad range of members within that. It can, therefore, sometimes be difficult to challenge those members within those meetings. These meetings have been going on for approximately two years and it is very clear from them that the DPCN is not a DPO.

I will go back to Senator O'Loughlin's points about improving consultation and the involvement of disabled people. It is so important to have access and resources in place to make sure to include all different kinds of disabilities, for example, to provide an Irish Sign Language, ISL, interpreter. If there are no resources, that completely excludes some disabled people. They are completely excluded straight away. I know, for example, that sometimes deaf people would go to a meeting but no interpreter is provided so they are automatically excluded. We need, therefore, to make sure we have the accesses in order to provide inclusion and access to everyone.

To speak briefly about disability awareness training, Ms Browne is right. I fully agree with the idea that there is no point in just having presentations without them being tied to specific actions. From my experience, I feel it is very important to have a disabled person actually leading the disability training because it has a greater impact on those who are attending it. Again, it depends on what the specific aim is. If, for example, deaf awareness or disability training were being provided to someone's workplace, it is important to have a disabled person there to actually be able to relate the lived experience. Similarly, if it is in a school with a deaf child in a class, it is important to deliver training that is specific to that workplace or that environment's needs related to the disabled person's own experience.