Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for their contributions. I thank Michael in particular for sharing the lived experience he has had with us. He has shown us all of the obstacles that people with disabilities have to face and how he has overcome them, although, obviously, he still has more obstacles to overcome.

My experience is that I deal with a lot of issues related to carers. As everyone knows, the situation varies from area to area. I am based in CHO 9 and every so often we get quotas for care hours and so on and we find it very frustrating. We still do not have enough care hours and that really annoys me. Some families need three or four carers to deal with issues. I am sure our guests have experienced that. It is very challenging when people have several different disabilities, when they are visually impaired and have Alzheimer's disease, for example.

I ask our guests to outline how they think we could better use the personal assistance service. There are many families and individuals who need someone with them to assist. The most important consideration is the person with the disability. In terms of carers and personal assistants, it is not clear whether a personal assistant is present when a carer is visiting a person with a disability. What is our guests experience in this regard?

What happens when a person with a disability is not happy with the service he or she is getting? Communications can be a bit of a problem. Some people are non-verbal and are not able to communicate properly, while others may have visual impairments. I am interested to hear about our guests' experience in that regard.

People with disabilities, especially women, are more at risk of poverty.

Usually women are on the front line. There are exceptions, but usually they are the ones who have to pay the bills, heat the house and look after the home. They are acting as carers and, in many cases, they are penalised when they are means-tested. I am curious about the witnesses' thoughts on that.

For people who have disabilities, it is quite annoying and wrong that it must be certified that they are unable to work for them to even access contributory or non-contributory social protection schemes. That contravenes Article 27 of the UNCRPD. I am curious about the witnesses' thoughts on that.

They mentioned the possibility of the current welfare system being replaced by a universal basic income. Would that take into account all the different necessary extras? At present there are many extras, whether it is free travel or funding for taxis and so on. Are they talking about a system that would deliver a basic income? How will that be set? During the pandemic, the Government set it at €350 per week, which is way below what carers get. I am curious about how that would be measured.