Ms Fiona Weldon:

As I said in my opening statement, disabled people do not want carers, caring, home support or support services that impede their chances to live like everyone else. We want support with the right to personal assistance services. This goes for all disabled people, not just physically disabled ones.

I am not 65 years of age yet, but I will be, and when I turn 65, it will be like I am no longer disabled. I will be an older person and I will only be able to fit into the older person's support services, which is ludicrous. ILMI is continually advocating and we have a campaign for rights-based support services in the form of personal assistance. We do not have that yet, with the current service being ad hocand different in every county. I have vast experience of supporting disabled people of all walks of life to secure personal support services that help them to live the normal rhythms of life. It has taken up to three years to get agreement from the HSE to give some people those services. That has involved hard work on developing their support plans but we have also needed to work with other agencies, for example, local and national politicians. That is simply crazy. If we had the right to personal assistance, many barriers would disappear. We could do, we could live, we could be like a non-disabled person can.