Dr. Mary Keogh:

I echo what Ms Naughton said. I will share an example. We did some research last year which looked at the challenges organisations of persons with disabilities have in terms of operating within the countries we work in and as our partners, because we work in partnership with organisations of persons with disabilities. One of the key things that came out of that research, and I can share it later with the committee, is the area of funding. Funding is critical for our organisations. In fact, core funding is critical. What we have a lot of the time is project-based funding which gives opportunities to respond. Quite an amount of funding came during Covid-19 and it was focused on being able to respond to that, and now it is also the case with Ukraine. However, all of that is very much project-focused. Core funding is a critical thing for organisations of persons with disabilities. It gives them the opportunity to develop their own strategy. It gives them the space to be able to respond to their membership. That was one of the things we found in our research.

We have a range of partnerships with organisations of persons with disabilities in the work we do. At a global level, we have strategic partnerships with the International Disability Alliance and the World Blind Union, where we fund in to give funding that allows both organisations to be able to take their work forward rather than us actually giving funding and directing that work directly. They have the space to do that. At community level, we are very much the same in terms of the organisations we work with, looking at what funding is needed. Always in one's work on funding there is the issue of the funder giving funding with criteria or conditions that need to be adhered to. While that is also important for due diligence on the legal side and the financial side, there needs to be some space with regard to giving organisations the space to be able to grow as well. This is the critical thing around funding. I echo Ms Naughton's comments on that. Funding and resourcing organisations of people with disabilities would be critical from the Irish Government's perspective.