Mr. John Dolan:

I thank the members of the committee for the opportunity to be able to present today. We are happy to be here with representatives from the National Disability Authority, Age Action and the Irish Wheelchair Association. We routinely, and on an ongoing basis, co-operate and work on this issue and other issues related to housing. The right to a home is one of the most fundamental human rights. To break it down into very practical terms, without a secure or fixed abode, people are going nowhere. They cannot participate in society in any decent way. They are locked out of participation.

Developing sufficient universally designed and wheelchair-liveable housing is essential to realise the right of disabled people to live independently in their own homes, in line with article 19 of the UNCRPD, which is a very thoughtful and well-written article. I invite members to look at it. Without a home, people cannot access their other rights and the capacity for ordinary living. A home is a necessary retreat for people from the world around them. At the same time, it is their launching pad into the community and the opportunities it should provide, including accessible public transport, public libraries, schools, etc. It is key.

The National Housing Strategy for Disabled People 2022-2027 is an opportunity to realise disabled people’s right to a home. The strategy and the open consultation process have been praised by disability groups. However, as we all know, paper and ink are one thing, and the success of the strategy will depend on its implementation and the building of homes in the right places and spaces for people. The implementation plan must have clearly defined targets. For example, the strategy states that 50% of new pipeline delivery in each local authority will meet universal design standards. The implementation plan must break down the proportion of these houses that will meet UD++ standards, and will be wheelchair liveable. The strategy will also fail if sufficient resources are not put in place to deliver it. The implementation plan must commit to the necessary funding needed to deliver on the strategy. Budget 2023 is coming up soon. That is the next and necessary available opportunity to provide such funding. The current Government is now halfway through its programme and does not have many budgets left ahead of it. The clock is ticking in that regard.

On the need to join up housing and other supports, the right to a home must operate in tandem with the capacity to exercise other rights. Cross-departmental and cross-agency working and collaboration are absolutely essential. Without them, the housing strategy will be a dead duck. That collaboration is required; it is not an add-on. Many people with disabilities end up in the ludicrous position of being told they cannot receive personal assistance services from the HSE without a home, and they will not be offered a home by their local authority without a guarantee that they will receive services. The book is called Catch 22, but this is real life for people on a regular basis. The inability to deliver accessible, universally designed and wheelchair-liveable housing, along with supports, is the driver of the over 1,300 people under the age of 65 who are living in nursing homes. If the issue is not resolved, the number of people with disabilities leaving the community and going into congregated settings, such as nursing homes, will continue to rise.

On the Housing for All policy, accessible housing for people with disabilities cannot and should not be seen as something separate from the right to housing for the general population. These issues have to be dealt with in tandem. We should not be dealing with one after the other. The lack of housing for people with disabilities is part of the housing crisis. The issue existed well before the 2008 bust. It continues, and is now worse after Covid. If people with disabilities do not benefit from the investment in housing, Ireland will fail in its UNCRPD obligations. Housing being built under Housing for All must include the appropriate levels of universally designed and wheelchair-liveable housing to meet people's needs. Sadly, to date people with disabilities have not been sufficiently included in efforts to address the housing crisis. It is a point that has been made by others already.

The waiting times for people with disabilities on the housing waiting list have increased rather than decreased. On Part M of the building regulations, the Disability Federation of Ireland, along with our coalition partners of the Irish Wheelchair Association, have a campaign, Think Housing Build Accessible and we fully back them in the need to have reformation of Part M of the building regulations to ensure higher wheelchair accessibility standards, which is essential. Under current regulations, housing must be suitable for wheelchair users to visit but not to live, whereas the definition of a house is somewhere people live, not somewhere they visit.

To wrap up, just over 5,000 people with disabilities are now on the social housing waiting list and I am sure that is a minimum number of those who have need. There are those in intellectual disability congregated settings, 1,300 in nursing homes and others living in family homes when it is well past the best by date for adults to be doing that. Accessible homes, along with necessary social care supports, are needed as a basic thing to make real progress. We are in the fifth decade since Ireland set up a programme - the disabled person’s grant - in the 1970s to start to tackle this. Some of those on this committee, off the top of their heads, can tell me how many hundreds of thousands of homes have been built since then, some with grants from the Government and so on. We now find ourselves in an awful situation because we did not get on with making homes accessible in the past. I also ask members to think housing when they are attending their other committees because housing is the gateway to living in the community, and any other committee that members are on is a related area. I thank members for their attention.