Ms Catherine Kelly:

On behalf of WALK, I thank the Chairperson and the members of the joint committee for this opportunity for Mr. Joe Mason, the CEO of WALK, Ms Olena Dmytriieva, a lady with lived experience of disability and the complexities of trying to survive in Kyiv during the war and then fleeing Ukraine, which she will discuss with the members later in this presentation, and myself, the deputy CEO of WALK, to present today on Article 11 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, on situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies. I would especially like to acknowledge and thank Senator Seery Kearney, the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and Mr. Adam Harris and his team from AsIAm for the tremendous support they provided to WALK in March 2022 when we embarked on a humanitarian mission to Lublin in Poland two hours from the border of Ukraine to return to Ireland with four families who had children with disabilities and-or autism.

To give a brief introduction to WALK, we are a progressive community and voluntary section 39 organisation based in Dublin and Louth and we have been supporting people with intellectual disabilities and autism for more than 50 years. The services and supports WALK provide are rights based and are rooted in the belief that all people have the right to live self-determined lives within an equal and inclusive society. This is in line with the UNCRPD which obliges states to protect the rights of persons with disabilities in the context of war.

During humanitarian emergencies, people with disabilities are among the most vulnerable groups because of their high levels of dependency and limited physical capabilities compared with the general population. Despite this vulnerability, sadly, they have not traditionally been considered a priority group for humanitarian assistance. According to the European Disability Forum, there are approximately 2.7 million people with disabilities in Ukraine, while Inclusion Europe estimates there are around 261,000 people with intellectual disabilities. Charities trying to help people with disabilities, particularly those with intellectual disabilities, within Ukraine are constantly highlighting the gap in terms of the frightening lack of information or media coverage about this cohort of people and, in reality, they suggest these people are being abandoned in Ukraine because, as the NGOs WALK communicated with clearly explained, most of these individuals have not got the capability to even reach the borders and for them there is no escape. In Ukraine children and adults with disabilities are often housed in large institutions, many of them already cut off from their communities, and as each day goes by the risk of them being abandoned and forgotten dramatically increases. This happens because, first, social disintegration occurs as a result of the erosion of formal or informal social supports in response to war, which cause separation and dispersal of families and carers as they flee war-torn towns and cities. Second, chronic dependency as a result of people with disabilities being cared for in large institutional settings means that when they are left alone they are unable to support themselves and are left to a fate worse than death.

It is extremely important to provide a context to the committee in order to understand our rationale for WALK’s humanitarian journey. WALK was in touch with an organisation in Kyiv in Ukraine where it gave practical examples of how people with disabilities are disproportionately affected by the war, for example, shelters in Kyiv are inaccessible, therefore, people with disabilities are forced to stay at home with no level of safety. Adults and children are being left in institutions to fend for themselves with little or no access to food and water. There is no essential medication for lifelong conditions such as multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. With power failures electric wheelchairs become inoperable. We have been told stories about the experiences of people with disabilities who have died unnecessarily because they cannot hide or navigate the cities' surfaces that are now covered in rubble making them completely inaccessible for anybody with mobility issues. The Ukrainian organisation we linked in with explained that it could try to support families to get to the border but these families could not manage from there without proper support and it beseeched us to help. As we could not morally ignore this plea, Mr. Joe Mason, our CEO, and Mr. Kevin Power, WALK’s director of day services, set off in a minibus to Lublin in the hope of returning to Ireland with the families of people with disabilities. On their return they brought these four families to Dublin Airport to complete all the necessary paperwork and avail of accommodation. However, when they arrived, we spoke with numerous interpreters who explained the families could be accommodated in a hotel for a night or two but then they could be constantly moved and there were no facilities at that time designated for people with disabilities. At this stage we had two children with disabilities who were ill and one child with autism who required medical treatment for epilepsy and the other child was experiencing extreme physical deterioration as a result of their cerebral palsy. One of the children had left all his mobility aids in Kyiv as they fled a bomb attack on their way to the border and, therefore, required constant assistance. He even had to be physically held by his mother in the back of a car to sit up straight. We could not in all consciousness abandon these families who had already suffered so much and traumatise them further by putting them into a system that was not suitable to meet their needs.

WALK developed a model of support that we felt would be sustainable. As the members will be aware, the Time to Move on from Congregated Settings report provided a roadmap for moving people with disabilities out of institutional and campus-based living and into homes within the community. The result is that many disability organisations now have empty houses and structures on their sites. While no one is advocating a return to institutionalisation a small investment into these houses could make them habitable as a source of accommodation for families with disabilities for the duration of their stay in Ireland. They are ideal because families with disabilities need accessible accommodation, rehabilitation, equipment and additional supports. A great example of this is that WALK worked with Cheeverstown House Ltd., a Dublin based disability organisation, which agreed to provide housing accommodation for two of the families. In addition to housing, a natural support pod was set up for each family in the local community to help them to orient themselves, navigate our systems and support them with life in general.

Disaster preparedness interventions and societal changes are needed to decrease the disproportionate environmental and social vulnerability of children and adults with disabilities to disaster and terrorism. We therefore call on the political leadership and all of the disability sector to ensure persons with disabilities are not abandoned and have full access to all humanitarian aid. Mr. Joe Mason, the CEO of WALK, will outline the practical measures that if enacted could save lives.