Dr. Yvonne Lynch:

I will start with Deputy Canney's last question. I would welcome more supports around assistive technology, particularly augmentative and alternative communication, AAC. I have a concern when we come from a focus on technology. This is about people. People will choose to use technology alongside some speech or gesture or a range of ways of communicating. We have to look at how they are able to participate, how their communication serves them, and where assistive technology fits in with that rather than technology being the most important bit. For me, it is around communication. When we think about universal design, it is not just about thinking how the app or the particular technology fits the person and focusing on an impairment model of the person. We need to change our whole society. A person with a communication aid who is using it really well can walk into a shop and be completely ignored. That person may not be able to access the justice system or employment. Such people meet barriers all along the way because there is no awareness or training. Typically with AAC, communication is a little slower and people often do not get the time to do that communication.

Therefore, I would like to see a much broader approach where we look to change our services. For example, with telephone banking, if you are using a communication aid and it takes one or two minutes to get your message out, often you cannot use telephone banking or people will not recognise the synthetic voice. They will want to speak only to the account holder. When we have a world where, when we try to get customer service, we seem to be dealing with machines or telephones, imagine how much more difficult that is and the challenges there are for a person using a communication aid. For me, the focus should be on how we look at society from the point of view of people with different abilities and needs and see how we shape that society. A lot of that training is around other people rather than the person with the disability.

I agree with Deputy Canney on the national broadband and having access to technology in the home but looking at society more broadly. We want people out contributing to our community.