Dr. Iris Elliott:

I will focus on the opportunity to develop indicators, and data to support them, to monitor how effectively the State is implementing Article 4.3 on participation and adhering to general comment No. 7. Through international engagement, we often hear about how Ireland looks good on paper. That is an excellent phrase to use. We have been before a number of UN committees in recent years. From our engagement with international committees, there is growing impatience with Ireland, as what people get from the State are endless descriptions of what it is doing and what policies and legislation it has. It is all activity based rather than impact or outcome based. What change actually happens? We are speaking in the context of disabled people, but the same point was made as regards children and black and ethnic minorities. The State needs to be held to account for its participation practices. Participation is a matter that IHREC prioritised as we prepared to become the independent monitoring mechanism through the disability advisory committee. Under general comment No. 7, there is good international guidance on how to develop a set of indicators on effective participation.

Deputy Ellis spoke about how disabled people had to navigate forms and there did not appear to be good communication. There is quite a request made of disabled people, particularly DPOs, to navigate these complicated mechanisms of participation without a clear sense of whether it is a worthwhile use of a scarce and important resource. Proportionality in terms of participation mechanisms is an issue. What is the effect of putting a great deal of resources into participating in them? Article 31 provides an opportunity to have an intersection between it and Article 4.3.

I welcome that there have been independent evaluations of a number of national equality strategies, although there has been none of the national disability inclusion strategy. Having independent evaluations means we can use independent analyses instead of just internal data and reflections. Disabled people and DPOs would have to be central to developing an independent evaluation of these participatory mechanisms. They are labyrinthine and time consuming and we do not have data on their effectiveness.