Mr. James Cawley:

Of course. I would love to. I thank Senator Carrigy for the question.

The key thing we must remember is the same people are being hit with a crisis in housing, the energy crisis and the cost-of-living crisis. The question was asked as to whether housing is always accessible. The answer is that it is not. The question was also asked as to whether housing is always affordable for disabled people. Again the answer is that it is not. We welcomed the national housing strategy for disabled people launched at the start of the year. It covers the period from 2022 to 2027. It looks at having strategic plans in all local authority areas. We welcome that disabled people and disabled person organisations are getting on the local authority housing disability steering groups that are tasked with the local strategic plans. We need to see the implementation of these plans. We need to make sure more houses are accessible and built to an accessible universal design standard to enable disabled people to live in them. We often say that one issue is to have the four walls of a house but another issue is the system. We have raised this in many of our reports, which we can circulate to the members. It seem to be the systems, policies and structures that exclude disabled people from living true independent lives. An example is that people applying for houses quite often cannot get independent living supports to match it.

Another issue is the misconception held by many people that disabled people occupy only social housing. There are disabled people who are trying to access private rental accommodation and trying to buy privately. We are locked out of the market. Affordability is not tied to what we are. It is tied to the market value. We could spend the whole meeting speaking about the housing issues that disabled people face. These are some of the high-level issues. It would be great to get more interagency collaboration on them so that disabled people can live independently.