Mr. Robbie Sinnott:

I will return to a couple of other issues before I respond to the question about the optional protocol. In 2020, the DPCN was set up based on a misconception. It refers to DPOs and representative organisations. It does the opposite of acknowledging, in that it actually states that the only ones which are not representative organisations are DPOs when the opposite is true. It is a very basic misconception by the "Department of Everyone". That is fundamental. As Deputy Cairns said, if the Department gets it wrong, and this is the focal point of the UNCRPD, then that is very serious and the Department should be accountable.

The DPCN and that space receives €100,000 a year. Is that purely to just get stuff? We have a meeting with the DPCN tonight as we are on the steering group. I have great respect for the colleagues we will meet there but that is not a DPO space.

I wish to make a related point that follows on from what Ms Browne and Ms Quigley said. We are volunteers and we go to the trouble of working very hard on policies, etc. There is no point in us going to meetings where we are in a tiny minority and everything must be filtered through, including if it is on the disability steering group. As a representative we have to represent non-DPOs yet our own members are not properly represented. Everything is filtered down and mediated but that is not what our members deserve. I am only entitled to represent our members. Our members are expected to go along to meetings that might last two hours, of which only five minutes might concern something directly related to us. The whole structure needs to change. People need to come to us and ask what is the best way for us to interact and not for them to decide the way to do things, and just deciding at the last minute as they do.

In terms of the optional protocol, if I were the State I would delay it for a very long time. The State's performance on the UNCRPD has been so bad. The cynic in me says the State will delay this as long as it can, and possibly until 2029. Even when asked for feedback on the initial State report on the UNCRPD, it more or less ignored everything in the actual report published in November. I am thinking, in particular as we are here with DPOs today and it is a very central issue, that it just passed it off and did not include the DPOs. Shockingly, Article 4.3, which is the cornerstone of the UNCRPD, is not mentioned in the State's report.

I do not know why. I think that, to a certain extent, it is just people doing what they do because that is the way they have always done it. There is a perception that these are the new kids in town and a question over whether they are house-trained and so on. There may be some prejudices in that way from a civil servant's perspective. One key civil servant in the Department said to me in November, when we were talking about the role of DPOs, that we have to live in the real world, to which I responded that the real world is the UNCRPD. I have not heard from him again but he was a key person within the Department. Many civil servants do not get it. They have to be told what the UNCRPD is, but we are always here to explain.