Tom Clonan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I apologise that I had to leave this morning. I had to go to a crisis meeting. I really wanted to hear what National Disability Authority had to say today and I am at a disadvantage in that I did not hear what it spoke to today.

I very much appreciate the National Disability Authority coming in here and the work that it does. Deputy Higgins mentioned the lived experience. I have come into this space by way of lived experience. Something we would definitely have observed, particularly since the financial crash, is that the situation for people such as our son, who is now an adult, is deteriorating on every measure, qualitatively and quantitatively. That is obviously a huge concern for us as parents. The narrative in Ireland always puzzles me. I have said this here previously in committee. As institutions, organisations and individuals, we know that discrimination on the basis of ethnicity is not tolerated, and quite rightly so, and people call it out all the time. Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or religious orientation - all of those - are clearly signalled but when it comes to disability, it is puzzling, frustrating and heartbreaking to note how routine it is to discriminate against persons with disabilities. I refer to casual cruel discrimination, often for idiosyncratic reasons. That is what our lived experience is telling us in all sorts of ways. We have addressed many of those issues in committee.

I detect a change in that narrative. When I ran for election in 2016, I did it as a protest. Many people said to me that I needed to broaden out my platform because not many people can relate to the issue of disability as it is a niche issue, a minority issue or a medical issue. I would say six years later that was absolutely not the case. The narrative is changing. It is going in the right direction. I think it is because of the work that people such as Dr. Hartney are doing in emphasising the fundamental human rights basis of the concerns that confront the community.

I would like to reach out to Dr. Hartney and maybe meet her because I have some ideas, in the limited that I can as a Senator, to introduce a Private Members' Bill or whatever. I might, if Dr. Hartney, had time, reach out to her, maybe meet up with her at her convenience, bounce my ideas off her and get some advice from her.

Dr. Hartney will have to forgive me if, because I was not here, I am asking something she has already addressed. On the apparent reluctance to ratify the optional protocol fully, has Dr. Hartney a sense as to what the resistance to that might be? Is it financial concerns? Is it concerns around litigation or what is it? Is Dr. Hartney optimistic about that?

I would say, from our lived experience, that things are deteriorating but, in the witnesses' experience with the NDA, do they detect an improvement or a change in the narrative? Do they think things are improving or is there something over the horizon? Is there light at the end of the tunnel? I suppose that is what I am trying to ask.

Again, I apologise that I had to leave.