Ms Jacqui Browne:

Senator Seery Kearney's questions were really good. We have to be clear about differences when we try to define disability. Having a catch-all definition of “disability” will not work.

Reference was made to people not qualifying for schemes, grants or benefits. Those are based on what are known generally as qualifying criteria. Those need to be reviewed but that is different from trying to estimate and disaggregate the entire population of disabled people. If we are trying to do that, we have to start with a human rights approach to disability and a social model of understanding. If we accept that as our premise, then to understand and capture, as Ms Hassett explained well, as many people as possible in a census, we need to identify the 20 or 30 barriers facing the broad church of disabled people. As Ms Hassett and others have said, the population of disabled people is hugely diverse.

I appreciate the challenge the CSO faces in trying to develop appropriate questions. I worked with it many years ago on the national disability survey study. Maybe it is time for a discrete national disability survey following the report of this census. It would be timely in the context of implementing the convention in Ireland and of the development and implementation of the SDGs before 2030. That could be thrown out there for consideration.

The Senator referred to the assessment of need. We all know that the assessment of need provided for in the Disability Act is, in itself, wholly inappropriate and does not do anything for the rights of disabled people. All it does is identify needs; it does not establish rights to any services required based on that assessment.