Ms Amy Hassett:

I will make a number of brief points to add to Ms Gjecaj's comments on gender-based violence. Research and statistics are super important and I would advocate increasing funding and starting to work on those. We recently made a submission to the EU on gender-based violence and how it is experienced by disabled women and pointed out that the support services currently in place for women, non-binary people and anybody experiencing gender-based violence need to be made accessible because they are not currently so. Something that is very structured and could be done in a short period of time would be to conduct an accessibility audit and make resources available to make those support services accessible in the broadest sense of the word. It is not just about not having a step at the front door; it is also about ensuring that people who are neurodivergent are properly supported and that service providers have equality, equity and unconscious bias training so that they can support individuals coming into those centres.

Another really concrete, short-term action is to start working on financial independence for disabled women and non-binary people. We have spoken about this at the committee previously. We talked about issues such as the means testing of disability payments and about how financial dependence is a major risk factor, or how it at least complicates experiences of gender-based violence. We spoke about disabled people being at increased risk of being financially and otherwise dependent on individuals close to them and the barriers that creates for people who want to leave dangerous and abusive situations. In addition to conducting research and collecting statistics, these are areas that we could start working on in the short term.

In terms of the resources needed by DPOs, it is also important to consider the resources needed by new and upcoming DPOs and I will speak to both. I reiterate that financial resources are incredibly important. We need resources to be able to pay people for the time they are spending and to make sure we can create systems that are accessible. We need money for online infrastructure and in-person meetings and to ensure that events of all forms are accessible. We also need capacity building, either by providing resources to DPOs so that they can go out and training elsewhere or by the State providing that training itself. That is something that would probably need to be discussed in greater detail but we need that capacity building. We need to know what we need to write and look at and how we interact with policy and legislation. We need that capacity-building piece. The State needs to ensure that all of its consultation is done in an accessible way. I absolutely agree with Ms McDonagh that we need to start moving towards a co-creation sort of space. Those are the things that are needed.

As regards new and upcoming DPOs, we would always support the creation of more DPOs. There are lots of areas and different intersecting identities that are not currently directly covered by a national DPO . We are in favour of more DPOs forming, to be super clear. As to what is needed, we need greater awareness of what a DPO is and how to create one. If that means individuals who are interested in forming a DPO being given support to get in contact with existing DPOs, we are entirely in favour of that but we need support in order to be able to achieve that. We are already struggling to keep up with the demands that are being placed upon us. Ensuring that support, resources and information are available is important.