Mr. Aaron Mullaniff:

I will preface my answer. We talk about vision impairment and blindness being low incidence. The first time that vision impairment and blindness came to the fore in this country was when Covid happened and the concept of social distancing came in. Many blind and visually impaired people would, from time to time, depend on a guide to be able to get them safely out of their house or home and to the shops, mass or to do the basics and suddenly that was gone. We had to produce our first campaign, in partnership with the HSE, on being mindful of blind and vision-impaired people. There were issues and challenges around that, right up to trying to stand in a supermarket without breaching someone's two metre social distance. We had reported assaults and other issues. Blindness and vision impairment are hidden disabilities, which is a challenge in itself. We need to do more, both as an organisation and a State, to highlight some of the inherent challenges that come with those disabilities. I will ask Ms O'Dwyer to speak about other organisations that are doing it quite well, with regard to STEM.